WORLD OF TOMORROW Review

At first glance, this sixteen minute short film is something of a pretentious piece for the artistic and academic crowd dealing with the universal head scratcher that is, "what is the meaning of life?" Of course, when given the necessary dues this animated short comes to mean much more than simply a restating of existential questions heard many times before. While writer/director Don Hertzfeldt has been crafting such animated shorts for upwards of twenty years now this was my first foray into his world and what an impression it has left. If nothing else, the large ideas presented in such simplistic form are a staggering juxtaposition of where we come from and what we come to be is enough to grapple with, but this idea and this attempt to cut to the core of the actual meaning in our existence is what impresses more. In essence, World of Tomorrow is a compact science fiction epic that quickly and concisely sets up its plot of a clone of a clone who, 227 years from the modern setting of the film, contacts her original self to tell her about what her life is going to be like for her remaining years (which just so happens to be a few centuries). Sound complicated? Sure-it could easily be construed as a complex premise that is constructed specifically for a certain type of outcome that will reinforce the writers desire to display his cynical view of our future, but more it seems Hertzfeldt's desire with his latest is not that of looking into the eyes of the apocalypse, but more to bring our attention to what type of future we're setting ourselves up for and to possibly avert the worrisome course we're currently on.