This short deservedly won the Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be spoilers ahead: The short takes place in a world where the water level is rising and people have to periodically build new stories onto existing structures. The focus is on one old man building his new story. During the transition from one story to the next, he drops his pipe in the water.The old man ultimately decides to go after the pipe rather than replace it. So he dons diving gear to begin the journey through his home to retrieve the pipe. As he descends through the structure, his mind "floods", so to speak, with memories of the past, particularly those concerning his wife.His memories take him back to before the flooding, even back to his childhood. This short is all about memory, life and loss, all very deftly and poignantly handled. The old man retrieves more than the pipe by the time he returns to the top and his current life.This marvelous short is available for viewing online and is well worth seeking out. Most highly recommended.

I don't know why at least two people in other comments write about „flood caused (probably) by global warming".To me, the flood is purely metaphorical. It's the time that is cruel and forces us to move on, to the next stage of our lives even if we don't want to, because we feel happy where we are, even if we maybe would like to stay there a little bit longer. But we cannot. The rising water forces us to go on. There's no exception.The old man from the movie travels back in time to watch again the memories of his life but also, as we all know, he becomes aware all those moments are absolutely gone. It's not possible to live underwater – we can only submerge for a moment to have a look at what is there that is all we can do.This is a movie about life, about being old and lonely, NOT about the global warming nonsense.

Today I watched a wonderful little animation, upon which I accidentally stumbled. La Maison en Petit Cubes managed to make a dent in the otherwise so rigid structure of my daily pattern.The theme here is about keeping a grip on your own life adventure; in this case in a very physical way through the stacking of houses over time. The setting is one where (through climate change probably) the world's water level is continuously increasing. As a result of this, people are forced to build on top of their own houses to 'keep their head above the water'. The beautiful thing depicted here is that one's house tells their life story. The old man, while moving his possessions on floor higher for the umpteenth time, dives down into his own memory. As he floats through the old spaces, their stories start to unfold before his eyes. He sees the development in reverse order, starting with grandchildren and ending with the relationship with the love of his life. On a less joyful note: I couldn't help but seeing similarities with the theme in the Pixar animation 'Up' - which makes me doubt the originality of the latter.Short as this story may be, it gave me a wonderful insight into the nostalgia that spaces of a home can give, and how brilliant it would be if we would live in a new space every so often, thereby preserving the previous one as a ready-made personal history book.

Like last year, I went to a special showing of the Oscar-nominated animated short films. However, unlike last year, in addition to the nominees, several "commended films" were also shown. In this review I'll make my predictions, though if it's anything like last year's choices, I'll probably once again pick the wrong shorts as my favorite for the award.The film features an old man living alone in a town that has become submerged. His answer to the slowly rising water is to keep building on to his original home--like placing cubes on top of cubes to keep out the water. When he loses his favorite pipe, he dons scuba gear to retrieve it. As he descends and sees the earlier levels of his home (now submerged) he relives in his mind his life and loves. It's all very sweet and sentimental.I saw this film with a friend and he liked how the scuba diving was a great plot device. He loved the metaphorical aspects of the film. As for me, I wondered if perhaps there was actually a secondary reason for the submerged homes--to draw attention to global warming. He didn't see it and perhaps I am just reading this into the film, though I still suspect the film is trying to preach to the audience about this supposed threat.The story was slow but very sweet--accentuated by a nice hand-drawn look and the gauze filter used to enhance the print along with evocative music. Oddly, while the film maker is apparently Japanese, the title is French and the art work doesn't really look Asian-inspired at all.Of the five films nominated, this is probably my third favorite. It was extremely creative and unique, but I still think the award will either be taken by PRESTO or my favorite, THIS WAY UP.UPDATE: LA MAISON EN PETITS CUBES was the winner this year. Not surprisingly, I got this one wrong but at least saw the film as a strong contender.