Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of Crossing the Streams where I go into the ether world to find something available via one of the streaming platforms, and this week I’m going to be taking a look at World of Tomorrow. This month on Crossing the Streams, I’m highlighting different Oscar nominees from the upcoming celebration on February 28th. (Hey, if you’re bored that night, we here at the GoodTrash Media Network will be hosting a Twitch Livestream of our Oscar watchparty; so, you should totally tune in and join us as we battle to predict the most winners). But I digress, World of Tomorrow is nominated as one of the Best Animated Short Films at this year’s ceremony. If you’re looking to get caught up, then this is the perfect opportunity to check a film off of that list as it clocks in at a whopping 16 minutes and is available right now on Netflix.
What if you received a FaceTime message one day from someone you didn’t recognize. But, you answer anyway. The person on the other end of the line then reveals that they are you. Well, more or less. They are a third generation clone of you from over 200 years in the future. Would you bite? Would you play along to see what they wanted? That’s the conceit of World of Tomorrow. We are instantly thrust into this animated world with young emily – a girl who has to be somewhere between four and six. Upon receiving a call from her future self, she is taken away on a tour of her clone’s futuristic home.
Don Hertzfeldt is no stranger to the Oscars. He was previously nominated in 2001 for his short film Rejected. He has also won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Short Films twice as well. This is just a tiny sample of his accolades. It’s easy to see why his work is so lauded. World of Tomorrow is hand drawn. He does things from an old fashioned perspective while adding his own spin to it. There’s a certain flawed quality about his artwork that carries with it a kind of charm. World of Tomorrow is a beautiful piece filled with simple stick figures, but they are able to draw you in. The simplicity of the characters allows for colorful flourishes elsewhere.
Julia Pott and Winona Mae carry the voice duties for the film as Clone Emily and Emily Prime, respectively. Julia Pott tackles the role with this almost monotone voice that works well for her character. She’s never boring, but similarly to a robot or android, she isn’t capable of normal human emotion or interaction because of her clone nature. Similarly, Winona Mae is able to capture a certain joy and whimsy in the voice of Emily Prime who is really too young to understand exactly what’s happening. However, the world that Clone Emily brings her into becomes almost a playground of imagination which is a contrast to the desolate, hopeless land that Clone Emily sees it to be.
This ties into much of the thematic material of the film. Clone Emily’s world is coming to an end. There seems to be little hope for humanity in the future. Clone Emily has returned to get something from Emily Prime. In doing so, their interactions have given Emily Prime a view of the future. Depending on how much she’s capable of grasping, it could give her plenty of ideas or inspirations of ways to possibly change the world. Hertzfeldt also spends much time reflecting on time. It is a time travel film, after all. We get a strong emphasis on the past, present, and future. At one point, Clone Emily quirps that you can’t appreciate the present until it is the past. An idea that she comprehends because she is living it. World of Tomorrow is a powerful reflection on life and death that hits home a number of times.
Lastly, I mentioned that this is a Time Travel film. It is a film that doesn’t get too deep with it’s travel logic which I think works in its favor. It goes to lengths to let us know that time travel is a dangerous adventure and that if calculations are off by the tiniest bit travellers could wind up in the atmosphere or crushed under the surface of the earth; others may find themselves thousands of years in the past, lost forever. This explanation eliminates questions of why everybody from the future isn’t time travelling left and right to change the world. Earlier, I alluded that in Clone Emily’s adventure to the past, and her very Dickinson episode with Emily Prime, she could possibly be planting seeds which may give the future hope. I don’t think its accidental that Hertzfeldt would put a child with endless imagination into a desolate future without their being hope for change.
Final Decree: 8/10 – Though World of Tomorrow clocks in at a minuscule 16 minutes, it has the ability to stick with you for much longer than that. Hertzfeldt deals with a number of contradictions that drive the beauty and message of his film. It’s whimsical, funny, and tragically poignant; a hard combination to juggle. I highly recommend World of Tomorrow. As I mentioned, it’s a lovely film and it’s a quick watch for those trying to ingest as many nominees as they can before partying on the big night. Isn’t that right, Osk?
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Arthur is a creator of content, lover of movies, and father of dogs. If you want to keep the conversation going, then click here to follow Arthur on Twitter. If you would like to keep up with what Arthur is watching, then head over to Letterboxd and give him a follow!
