Beautiful!
Reviews for "Snow Hare"
ShawnBranden responds:
Thank you! :)
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptence.
1. Denial. The black spot that manifests on the top of the rabbits head, and continues to grow is a manifestation of rabbit's emotions and memory of what happened. The rabbit tries to shake it all off, remembering the good times with his chubby friend, pretending and trying to believe it isn't there, that his tragedy didn't happen, and it does recede for a little bit, but it is still there. When the rabbit steps outside to take a look at the snowman, he puts the scarf onto the snowman, as if to project the memory and image of his friend onto the effigy, But once again, pretending that he is still alive does not get rid of the problem. For reality is what it is, and you can not deny that which obviously exists. Reality is, the chubby rabbit friend was swiftly killed by a hawk, for he could not outrun it, and now what remains of his corpse is being picked by crows.
2. Anger. After experiencing a horrible nightmare, the rabbits emotions swell into intensity, as the black spot grows, almost covering his entire body, giving him a beast like appearance, and manifesting as his anger. The rabbit lashes out at a crow sitting atop his snowman, the straw that breaks the camels back. The rabbit attacks with a subconscious to tear apart the crows, and make them suffer like his friend did. Yet in the wake of his hate filled trance of aggression, he come to realization that he has committed a horrible deed out of his aggression, he destroyed the effigy of his chubby rabbit friend, and that brings us to...
3. Bargaining. When people are dealt with grief, they could go in either two directions from here. They could either go back to denial, and shift the of blame their actions onto their instigators, and continuing suffering great hardships only to keep coming back to this point and going back to denial again, and let the black spot become their persona... Or they could realize at this point that they are, or at least would be no better than the adversaries or happenings that brought this grief upon them in the first place. The rabbit chooses the latter option, as now his emotional manifestation is sprouting wings, reminding him that in his actions, he has become not unlike the birds that took his friends away. This scene also has some Judeo-Christian religion metaphoric symbolism to it too, because the act of bargaining in some people is praying to God, pouring your soul out to Him, asking Him to relieve themselves of grief. So the wings can also be taken as angel wings, and the crow coming out of the rabbit can be seen as a form of exorcism. Regardless, after his bout of fury, the rabbit is kneeling down for some inner atonement for his out burst, and is now relieved of the power that has taken over him, but now he is powerless and that leads us to...
4. Depression. The ultimate feeling in sadness. It consists of combination self loathing, helplessness, but overall, a lack of motivation and empowerment. However, since the rabbit let go of the scarf, that means he overcame this stage, and that brings us to...
5. Acceptance. In the end, we might make mistakes, or bad things wll happen despite how prepared we are. One things for certain, bad things will happen, and it is up to us to overcome the grief, lest we become shadows of our former selves.
I 5'd this. I rarely give out five stars, but overall this movie was well though out, and had some theatrical style animation, which if you consider the standards of this site in general, is a rarity. Plus, it's been a while since a movie inspired me to sit down and make me give my two cents in a review.
For all intents and purposes, this movie is flawless, made straight from the soul too as evidenced by the dedication to the Author's irl friend who tragically died. This was a sincere effort.
Now I might comment on the design of the character and how they might fall into "Cal Arts style" as John K. puts it, but that's a really superficial aspect. When you get down to it, some good movies have come out of Cal Arts style, one of them being the Iron Giant, so even if the design does fit into the criteria asymmetrical appeal or might "same face" a bit at times it doesn't matter, because I felt real emotion from this. Plus, the rabbits despite looking half humanoid in appearance do have truly rabbit characteristics that I don't see in other rabbit cartoons. Like those slope like snouts. They are like a cross between a human snout, and a rabbit's actual snout, which if you look at rabbit, you notice that their nose really go down like that from their nose bridge towards their mouth. Their ears though, are certainly tinier than real rabbits but again this is superficial stuff, for the backgrounds were beautifully painted, and animation was absolutely top notch. If the animation was standardized like if characters moved like they do in Franklin or Cailou, I might raise a complaint about the design, but the animation was full of life and subtle movements, just like in a traditionally animated Disney film, making the design of characters irrelevant in that regard.
Once again, it's rare we see theatrical quality animation on Newgrounds. I recommend people take their time to check this one out.
As for the author, thank you for your these heavy 4 minutes, may your friend rest in piece, and good luck on your next entry...
ShawnBranden responds:
Wow. Thank you! I really appeciate the thought you put in to this! I did a lot of research on the stages of grief for the project which in turn helped me to better understand what i was going through when I lost my friend. The stages don't all happen in one particular order. Many happen concurrently and repeat throughout the process. Also thank you for the critique. Additionally the Snowshoe hare's fur changes color seasonally and it was that change that attracted me to use the hare as my subject. I'm glad you got a clear understanding of what I was going for. I'll do my best to add to the quality for the next.
"let it go"
what a wonderful work of art
Great!
I am a little torn reviewing this piece, for several reasons. The first being I have no knowledge of art or much of the artistic process, and so my opinion should, and does indeed, mean very little to anyone but myself. That being said, I would like to share with you how I feel, because you have made me feel so strongly.
I wanted to say that this piece is the reason Newgrounds is such a great site, but this work truly transcends any place it is viewed. Newgrounds isn't only better for hosting this, I am better for viewing this. So much art seems vain to me, selfish, beauty for exploitation, but not this.
This work is what art is to me. This is what makes me want to tell stories, sing songs, draw pictures.
And while I have never experienced a loss so severe, you have shown me, even if barely, how to empathize. For that, there is no reward I could give you to repay my debt.
So for now, these few, cliche words will have to suffice: Thank you.