It is without a doubt that Don Hertzfelt’s It’s Such a Beautiful Day deserves more love and attention from animation enthusiasts. Originally released as three animated shorts, Hertzfelt masterfully combined them into a single experimental feature film, utilizing a unique editing style that blends 2D animation with surreal imagery and photographs.
The film follows the journey of Bill, a troubled man trying to come to terms with his shattered psyche. As his life begins to unravel, he travels through time in search of meaning and love. Hertzfelt, known for his challenging and existential stories, uses humor and absurdities to deliver an intimate meditation on the subconscious.
The Animated Masterpiece You Probably Haven’t Heard of
Despite being complex and non-linear, the engaging voice-over and nonchalant narrative make it easy for a broad audience to relate to Bill and his journey, culminating in an emotional ending that will stay with viewers long after the film has ended.
What sets It’s Such a Beautiful Day apart from other animated movies is its ability to disrupt every well-known aspect of animated films. Instead of vibrant colors and intricate designs, Hertzfelt opts for a simple hand-drawn technique and a grayish atmosphere that effectively captures Bill’s dreadful state of mind.
The split-screen windows scattered throughout the film, described by the narrator as Bill’s chaotic stream of consciousness, perfectly complement the hand-drawn animation style. The characters, drawn as stick figures, are distinguishable only by their accessories and gadgets, translating memory into film and giving life to the characters.
Through the absurdities of Bill’s journey, Hertzfelt delivers a painfully relatable story that reimagines life and death. It’s Such a Beautiful Day demonstrates that daily rituals and tasks define one’s life, and the good times experienced doing other things are the unusual part. As Bill’s routine falls apart, he succumbs to a mysterious illness that causes him to lose his grip on reality.
The movie addresses topics such as depression, grief, and the never-ending search for love and companionship with acidic hints of humor.
Despite the melancholic approach, It’s Such a Beautiful Day takes an upbeat approach that often drives the narrative in unexpected directions. The film is visually stunning, delivering impressive scenes when the hand-drawn animation blends into surreal imagery. By the end of the film, viewers will undoubtedly know themselves better, appreciating the small details and mannerisms that make each person unique.
It’s Such a Beautiful Day is the culmination of Hertzfelt’s diverse and innovative career, encapsulating all his best ideas and techniques. Hertzfelt’s other work, such as Rejected and World of Tomorrow, challenge the limits of time and space in search of how much of the human mind endures and how the child inside us might be the only genuine part of the soul that carries on unscathed.
Hertzfelt is undoubtedly one of the most creative voices in animation, breaking stereotypes and addressing complex matters of existentialism and nostalgia with an easygoing approach that only gets better with every rewatch.
It’s Such a Beautiful Day is a moving masterpiece that deserves more love and attention from animation fans. Initially released as three animated short films, Don Hertzfelt pieced them together in one single experimental feature film, blending 2D animation with photographs and surreal imagery in a unique editing style. The film follows Bill, a troubled man trying to come to terms with his shattered psyche. As his ordinary life begins to fall apart, he voyages through past and future in search of meaning and love.
Don Hertzfelt is one of the most brilliant minds out there when it comes to animation. Famous for his challenging and existential stories, he uses humor and absurdities to deliver an intimate meditation on the subconscious. Although It’s Such a Beautiful Day is complex and non-linear, the nonchalant narrative and the engaging voice-over makes it easy for broad audiences to relate to Bill and his journey, leading up to an emotional ending that will stick with viewers for a long time.
What Makes It’s Such a Beautiful Day So Special
It used to be widely accepted among audiences that for an animated movie to be accessible to the public, it had to follow certain rules, which, ironically, basically required stories to follow Pixar’s formula of success. Throughout the years, major hits such as Spirited Away which changed animation foreverand Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse helped deconstruct the idea that animated movies aren’t “made for kids” and, taking the matter further, animation isn’t a genre, but rather a valid art expression that encompasses diverse tastes regardless of age, race, country, and so on. In this context, It’s Such a Beautiful Day disrupts every well-known aspect of animated movies, from the praise for realistic visuals to a story that settles for beginning, middle, and end.
Instead of a vibrant outburst of colors and styles, It’s Such a Beautiful Day opts for a simple hand-drawn technique and a grayish atmosphere to effectively capture Bill’s dreadful state of mind. Additionally, it perfectly fits with the many split-screen windows scattered across the movie as the narrator describes Bill’s chaotic stream of consciousness. Since the characters are drawn as stick figures, one can only tell them apart through their accessories and gadgets, precisely translating memory into film: it’s common to remember someone because of a specific object such as a hat or a watch. In It’s Such a Beautiful Day, these small fragments of memory is what gives life to the characters.
The film’s experimental style isn’t the only thing that stands out; through the absurdities of Bill’s journey, Don Hertzfeldt conducts a painfully relatable story that reimagines what is generally perceived about life and death. In It’s Such a Beautiful Day, Bill realizes that his daily rituals and tasks are what truly define his life, while alternatively, the good times he’s experienced doing other things were the unusual part. As his routine begins to fall apart, Bill begins to succumb to a mysterious illness that causes him to lose his grip on reality. One could argue that It’s Such A Beautiful Day is essentially about depression, grief, or the everlasting longing for love and companionship, although the movie addresses these topics with acids hints of humor. While Don Hertzfelt leaves plenty of room for interpretation, the film perfectly captures the concept of involuntary memories: the process of grasping long-lost remembrances through unexpected sensations evoked in the present.
Overwhelmed by the monotony of his daily life and deliberate efforts to recall the past, Bill lets his subconscious take over and finds himself floating through different generations of both family and strangers, noticing humanity’s propensity to repeat the same mistakes, carelessly craving eternity as the one and only solution for loneliness. Despite its melancholic approach, It’s Such A Beautiful Day counts on an upbeat approach that often drives the narrative in unexpected directions. Despite its simple animation style, the film is visually stunning, delivering impressive scenes when the hand-drawn animation blends into surreal imagery. By the time viewers finish It’s Such A Beautiful Day they will undoubtedly know themselves better, appreciating the small details and mannerisms that make each person unique.
The Genius of Don Hertzfeldt
It’s Such a Beautiful Day is the magnum opus of Hertzfeldt’s diverse and innovative career, encapsulating all his best ideas and techniques. Some might be familiar with some of his other work, which even earned him well-deserved Oscar nominations and share plenty of aspects in common with It’s Such a Beautiful Day. In Rejected Hertzfeldt compiles a bunch of weird and absurd commercials for a fictional company that were rejected due to their bizarre nature. In this award-winning short film, Hertzfeldt expresses the pressure of uniform art expression in a capitalist society. The sharp critique applies directly to the animated film business, which suffered for years from the “formula of success” established by big businesses such as Pixar and Disney.
A few years after It’s Such a Beautiful Day‘s emotional gut punch, Hertzfeldt once again decided to hit his fans where it hurts with World of Tomorrow a trilogy of films centered around a young girl’s journey to a distant future, guided by an older, wiser, and desolate version of herself. With his distinctive stick figures and psychedelic scenarios, Hertzfeldt challenges the limits of time and space in search of how much of the human mind endures, and how the child inside us might be the only genuine part of the soul that carries on unscathed. In sum, Hertzfeldt is definitely one of the most creative voices in animation right now, breaking stereotypes and addressing complex matters of existentialism and nostalgia with an easygoing approach that only gets better with every rewatch.
