Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Das Rad" is a 2003 Academy Award nominated student short film by Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel and Heidi Wittlinger. The most interesting thing is maybe how different the paths of the trio went. Uibel died in 2000 at age 23 or 24 already, Wittlinger has worked here and there in the animation department for small projects, but XStenner really hit the jackpot having worked on "Iron Man 2", "Game of Thrones", "Cropse Bride", "Hugo" and many other big projects.Anyway, back to "The Wheel". I have to say that I did not really enjoy these 8 minutes. The film plays during the Stone Age and we see two stone creatures talk to each other making jokes repeatedly about how grass grows on the back of one of them. Then, one of them discovers the wheel which turns out a pretty evil vision though, so they are glad when everything is back to normal without the wheel shortly afterward.I can sort-of see how people like this short film, as it is somewhat different, but it's not really my cup of tea and it probably would not have made my personal top5 in the animated short film category that year.

Polaris_DiB Talk about the impermanence of human civilization! You want to think we're such a big and important force in the world, look at us from the perspective of rocks...I kind of like the idea that maybe the inanimate objects are alive too, just on a much longer timescale. Though what it'd be like for a rock to suddenly be upended and moved would be kind of weird.Anyway, this short shows two rocks who spend their leisurely eons under a tree peeling off fast-moving moss that keeps attacking them when they lax their guard. They watch the entire progress of human civilization as it starts from "a bunch of wood piles" to the sudden explosion of gigantic skyscrapers... and then the rot and fade away of all of them. That was weird...The animation in this short is amazing! The way the sky moves to the rocks, the speed-up and slow-down of time, the characters and their shapes, the timing, and everything is really impressive. This short should become a standard by which to measure the possibilities of computer graphics. It's as inventive as it is well-designed.--PolarisDiB

Michael DeZubiria Rocks is one of the best animated films I've ever seen. It not only starts off with a clever idea, but it alternates between real time and geologic time so simply but so effectively that it is almost like it is alternating between two different worlds. It gives a great idea of the difference between geologic time and the time that we experience, as two rock piles talk to each other, complaining about another ice age like it's a rainy day.The stop motion animation itself is indeed brilliant, but my favorite part is the picture that the movie paints about the path of human history. It shows us how fast we move in geologic time, illustrating the description of humans as a "flash in the pan" in the perspective of the history of the earth.Take any geology class, and one of the first things you will learn is that, if all 4.6 or so billion years of the earth's life were condensed into a 24 hour period, humans came into existence something like 2 seconds before midnight, and this movie knows that.The rocks are initially impressed with the development and industrialization that they see going on around them, the increase in productivity and efficiency, until suddenly it becomes a monster, growing and growing and towering over them, threatening their homes and their existence.But before anything serious happens to them, the growth that they witnessed begins to decay and break down, and they watch apathetically as it collapses back into the earth from which it grew, becoming the rolling hills that it always was. It is a very pessimistic view of the future of the human race, but more than likely true.What I really love about the film is that it can really make you look at the way you live your life without ever becoming preachy or, in a film that contains the end of humanity, political. This is truly a great film.

Havan_IronOak They say that good art is something that once seen changes one's perspective forever. If so this short qualifies. Once you see it you'll always be a bit aware of the rock's perspective of time.Bravo on an really well-conceived short film.