Wonderful. Beautiful. Loving. Miraculous. Spike Jonze’s bare-bones sci-fi romance is at once bizarre, familiar and utterly perfect. The director has somehow managed to make the tale of a man dating a computer programme into a love story simultaneously defined by and independent of our modern age.
Boasting a brilliant cast, loving cinematography and a trailer that brought numerous unsuspecting cinema punters to tears, it’s the kind of film that you don’t see very often. Cherish every second of it.
[h2]1. It’s Such a Beautiful Day[/h2]
Earlier this year Don Hertzfeldt, a wonderfully weird animator from Austin, Texas quietly released one of the greatest animated films of all time.
Weighing in at just over an hour, It’s Such a Beautiful Day chronicles one man’s mental collapse through crude yet bizarrely gorgeous stop-motion stick-figure animation. Touching upon everything from the universal fear of death to a guy eating a paper clip, it makes for one of the most understatedly poignant experiences ever committed to celluloid. Narrated alternately with deadpan hilarity and a quietly beautiful intelligence, it’s the perfect example of film taking the viewer to a higher level and leaving them weeping buckets in the process.
A mute, expressionless stickman named Bill swiftly becomes one of the most nuanced characters to grace modern fiction, not bad going for a guy who doesn’t even have knees.
Tell us, which indie films did you fall in love with in 2013? Let us know in the comments section below.