Rejected (2000)

Does this organization even exist? It sounds like everything I wouldn't want my children or myself to learn. In any case, thank you Family Learning Channel for rejecting Mr. Don Hertzfeldt and shaping his way into the wonderful world of animation. This is a collection of very short films, most, or probably all, of them extremely violent and non-sensical packed not only with humans, but also the most oddly-shaped creatures, for example strange cloud figures. Hertzfeldt was in his early 20s when he made this short film and his style of animation is already clearly defined. He was well on his way to turning into the master of dark animation back then already.Nonetheless, I have to say I don't like this short film as much as some of Hertzfeldt's other work to this day. At best, it can be described as pointless fun. I am a bit surprised that his only Oscar nomination so far was for "Rejected". My two preferred choices by him are the earlier "Lily and Jim" and "Wisdom Teeth" which was made 10 years after "Rejected". Nonetheless I'm glad he made his first full feature film recently, even if it's only slightly over an hour, and it seemed to have turned out well. His style always struck me as something difficult for anything over 30 minutes. Keep up the good work, Don.

Some other reviewer remarked that - You'll either love it or hate it. Well, I hated it. It is not that I don't like violence or gore or plain idiotic stuff. I like South Park and I love horror comedies. But everything should be in a context. There is no context here. Just random stuff.While watching this movie I felt as if somebody was playing a joke on my expense. I guess the Don Hertzfeldt was.The premise is that these shorts were commissioned by a channel and were rejected. And then they show these meaningless and horrible segments which go on and on. I would have rejected them too. Even at nine minutes it was made to test endurance levels.I suspected it was bad from the start when the introductory text was jiggling. It was hard to read and very pretentious. And things just went downhill from that. These kind of juvenile techniques are used especially by those filmmaker who don't have anything to tell.The voice acting was also atrocious which really complemented the quality of movie.By the way, I have to grudgingly admit that the last 45 seconds or so were good and innovative. But the rest of the video had already spoiled my mood.

Hertzfeldt made this film with the intention of engaging in some sort of social criticism. Unfortunately, all he's created bizarre mediocrity.It is not enough for art to merely obtusely react to the status quo. On the most fundamental level, art must provide truth and insight. Otherwise, it is relegated to haplessly flailing around in an inane pursuit of shock and controversy. When art depicts truth, it shakes the very foundations of the contemporary social order without a second thought.In the end, revulsion to a contradictory world is only the first step in an honest political and artistic portrayal of it. As Trotsky wrote in 1923, "You can't scream louder than war and revolution."

May be a Don Hertzfeldt animated short is not really your taste. The first experience I had with the animator was 'Billy's Balloon' which is very sadistic, it shows balloons attacking children, but it's also one of the funniest shorts I have seen. 'Rejected' is less sadistic, but a lot more disturbing; if you didn't like 'Billy's Balloon' or other Hertzfeldt-work you will not like this one either.It starts with showing some commercials the animator has made. They are disturbing, violent and therefore rejected by the people who gave him the assignment. All the rejections lead up to a breakdown the animator has, something we see in a brilliant piece of animation. Telling you more about the story we see would spoil things for you.The animation itself is terrific. It has some very simple looking things in it, the way 'Billy's Balloon' was animated, but the "breakdown"-part I mentioned above together with some other special effect sequences look amazing. The way the whole thing is presented is pretty inventive as well. Even the classical music is perfectly chosen. Another great short from animator Don Hertzfeldt.