Reviews for The Price of Living

[Bosswell]

There is a lot of discussion in the comments about the meaning. It seems to me that what the artist is saying is that money represents the part of your very finite life that you gave in order to acquire something. If wealth comes from work, then money is literally a physical manifestation of your spent time. The character in the animation sees the rich man leaving the office and is excited by the promise of getting rich from doing nothing. When the money starts to roll in, he is... well, consumed by consumerism. He spends it all and looks for more easy cash. He pours his soul into the acquisition of wealth, and it isn't until the end that he realizes that all the wealth he acquired is really just the spent souls of others.

It's art, so maybe the discussion is more important than the intended message, but that's my take. I thought it was pretty well done. Some of the animations could have been cleaner, but it made me think, so 5 stars.

[Zenpei]

This was a great animation but I can't help but feel somewhat confused about the moral of the story. In my mind it felt as if it someway displayed the effects of taking drugs, and in order to acquire that the man had to pay with his own flesh. I may be pulling this out of thin air but this is how I interpreted it.

And that is the beauty of it. You somewhat made an art for us to interpret. I like that.

[mr-johnson22]

What was the moral of this movie, exactly? It's clearly trying to portray money in a negative light, but the metaphor of money people is all over the place. So because people are money, spending money is bad...but the protagonist isn't spending money, they're investing it, and is getting back more money, so shouldn't that be a good thing? I was half-expecting the protagonist to be able to replace their ripped-off money-flesh with all the cash the investment earned, thus turning them into a giant super money-person. A story about money-people who get "spent" to death (including the ones we see in the alley near the end) doesn't make any sense when said people have apparently been making plenty of money.

Also, the money-people concept equates putting money into an investment to sacrificing pieces of your body to some kind of evil government/corporate entity...but it also unwittingly suggests that a person's identity and self-worth are synonymous to how much money they have. This is especially confusing because despite how the movie is dripping with an anti-money sentiment, it is accidentally very pro-money, and is giving the (rather poor) lesson that the purpose of money is for it to be hoarded. Something tells me this isn't what you were going for, and it muddles whatever message you were trying to convey.

And are you really trying to say that investing money is morally objectionable? Is that really the worst thing about money to dedicate a whole movie to? You could have made the movie about the evils of consumerism; or corporate greed; or wealth disparity; or the dangers of poor financial education--all while keeping the money-people concept. If you absolutely had to attack the concept of investing, maybe you could done a story about money put into bank & government loans getting used by the banks & governments for nefarious purposes, thus dooming investors to guilt by association. Even that's a bit of stretch, but I just have a hard time believing that something as tame as putting money into an investment is as bad as self-mutilation to appease a flesh-hungry corporate deity.

The 3/5 is for the animation & mood, which were done well, but the actual content of this movie just didn't sit right with me.

(By the way, I wrote this before reading too many other reviews so that I could come to my own conclusions before being influenced by other people's. My apologies if some of my concerns have already been addressed by other reviews.)

[akasheezee]

I really enjoyed watching it.
Most people don't know why he needs money if his skin is made out of money.
I was also confused at first, but on second thought I interpreted it differently. It is not about the money itself, it's about the value.
Every human being is valuable, but still they want more. They want to be unique and outstanding. Therefore they sell theirself to have a "better" life at cost of their own health (physically and mentally). They pay for material things with their own health/well being. The ones who couldnt stop themselves got addicted to the spending until nothing but suffering left.

[firemomo45]

Communist propaganda I tell you!