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Too much of everything

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

In a long deserted military base a high rickety tower stands high above the ground. At the top is an officer awarding medals to damaged soldiers who survived the war before pushing them to their death on the ground far below. At this point their corpses are photographed by another sinister man and the resulting image sent to his employer far from the site.This is the whole plot of the short, apart from the detail of the ending which I'll not spoil beyond saying that it is oddly comic and darkly weird. In terms of straight animation the ideas and the creation of them are good as the short looks good but also seems to mix styles and produce animation techniques within other animation techniques. It also is delivered with a real sinister air that works well with the more comic (but still sinister) conclusion. So on this level I liked it as a film, but on the downside I did feel like it left me hanging a little bit.It plays like a comment on the disposable nature of life to some within the military (this is a Polish film) whereas from a slightly different angle it appears to be commenting on the treatment of soldiers who no longer serve a use on the battlefield. And I could go on – there are a couple of different readings of this film but it doesn't really help the viewer to appreciate them. If there is a serious point here then the comic ending rather detracts from the seriousness of it; conversely if there is only a rather macabre creative theme to the short, the specifics of the start seem very, well, "specific" for there not to be a pointed commentary aspect to it.Fallen Art still works as a short animation though and it is well created with a dark and sinister air to the comic of the grotesque. I just wish that it had been clearer to the viewer in regards what it was trying to be/do.

Boy, the artwork in this animated short is nothing short of fantastic. It was brilliant and made this "cartoon" fun to watch despite the sour message. The story is simply showing some huge military guy pushing a man to his death and then some real sicko getting excited seeing a dead body on the ground. It's sick stuff, sadly typical of almost all the material on this "Animation Show Volume 2" DVD. Gosh, what happened to the light and funny stuff? Meanwhile, any movie - short or feature length - that is blatantly anti-military, is pretty sure of getting an Academy Award nominee. Such is the Liberalness of the Academy, so it is no surprise that a short like this depicting military officers as deranged is going to be liked on the Left Coast (Hollywood).Having said that, though, I have to admit I was so captured by the visuals that I didn't really care about the morbid "story." The ultra-fat slob who was dancing to shots of the dead man actually was entertaining, thanks to the music. Still, one wonders why kind of demented brain produces material like this?

In these days of US heading for another proxy war, movies like that are more important then ever. Especially when media today totally controls the opinions of mindless viewers. When they can take pictures of dying soldiers and turn it into entertainment. We see it everyday on the TV screens and in papers. And the public is hungry for more. If it is not cruel and bloody, it is not entertaining to them. Maybe when they themselves or their sons get drafted to fight and lose their lives for all the wrong reasons, they will think again and remember this short animated story by Tomek Baginski. And if some of them survive and come back to the once great country devastated by the WW III, they will have plenty of time to reevaluate whom they voted for in 2008 while standing in the soup line.

I enjoyed Fallen Art more than I did Kathedra (which I would rate 9/10). Kathedra was a stunning & visually elegant film with an interesting theme (The sublimation & petrification of the individual by religion. The mindless growth of religious entities towards the abyss.) Fallen Art has a more accessible & simpler animation style, as well as being extremely funny.Fallen Art is a comedy about tragedy; the tragedy which has defined human existence since the earliest civilizations. The desire to impose order/control via the application of violence. In a word, War. Most specifically, the process of War & the State. This process leads to a macabre form of Art, which becomes the justification for further death & destruction. This process is similar to the process of producing animation (although this analogy is limited as there is a director responsible for a film/animation). It is linked & sequential. It operates on a variety of levels which obscure who is really responsible for the product. Once a step is taken, the following steps are inevitable. No one is responsible as they are just playing their parts in the complex operation. No one accepts any blame for the results. And despite the result to human life, there is enthusiasm for both the process and the ultimate result, the Art of war.Like the best Eastern European animation, there are no intelligible words in the film. And none are needed. The words, "Blah, blah, blah", perfectly capture the "reason" of the process that leads soldiers to meaningless deaths. The smiley face medals are also apt.The real brilliance of Fallen Art is in the final product of the on-screen process, the hilarious dance film created from still photos of the soldiers who are booted to their deaths from the jump tower. In the same way that societies create "Value" from the destruction of their "Enemies" via entertaining propaganda, the meaningless destruction of the soldiers here becomes mass entertainment; a music video. The process of destruction MUST continue or the deaths of those who have already been sacrificed would become meaningless. But there is no real end to the process. The music doesn't really stop. Another chorus or verse can always be added.Even the frog, the voice of external reality, can only croak to record each new death splat.