It's unfortunate that so many brilliant animated shorts in Japan are largely obscure to western audiences. It's also unexpected that a Japanese comedian, going by the pseudonym "Tekken", was able to capture the hearts of millions with two short, dialogue-less, and crudely drawn animations. The following covers the first of the two, entitled "Furiko" (otherwise known as Pendulum). You don't need words to tell a beautiful story. It's such a rare thing to see in recent anime, but Takefumi Kurashina takes the medium and strips it to its rawest form - basic animation, simple music, and an uncomplicated plot. Telling the story of a man's journeythrough life and love, the narrative is done beautifully and flows effortlessly, and is an entirely silent affair. That being said, Furiko plays on its simplicity with great success, with the emotions of its characters pulling through in every fleeting scene. The narrative is pushed along with the frame being captured in a swinging pendulum, only stopping when the man pauses to realize the beauty in his life. Like a swinging pendulum, life moves on, and these realizations are far and in between life's tragically brief existence.
The music accompanying the man's story is perfect. It's a vague statement, but one that isn't really given out lightly. The lyric-less song begins with four piano chords, which repeat themselves throughout the entirety of the story. With the repetition of these chords matching up with the incessant swinging of the "pendulum", violin melodies are added as the story progresses, similar to Pachelbel's Canon in D. Like the story, the melody's buildup has a beginning, a climax, and an end, bringing everything back to the same four chords used at the beginning of the piece. Ashes to ashes, so to speak. It very much reflects the whole aspect of life as a journey, marked at the beginning and end with life and death.
I'm not a big fan of the word "tearjerker", but in Furiko's case, tearjerker is most definitely an understatement. In three, short minutes, Furiko accomplishes to do what dozens of long-running episodes might not - emotionally captivate you with simplicity, subtlety, and an endearing story.
Recommended
Pendulum not trying to embellish reality, she is represented as. This beautiful and sad animated flip-book is like a drama, all the emotions spend. Also very tragic. One can easily immerse in the context. This animation is authentic, it shows Japan as! The portrait of so many families in Japan ... Life for a Japanese man is his work, always staying out late, drinking Friday night etc.. As a result, the family passes behind, no time for us and without he realizes, he finds himself in retirement. When he realizes all this, it's too late ... He tries to stop the clock, it symbolically shows that he wants tostop time, but again, it's too late ...
The implicit message that the author wants us to understand is that: time flies, you should take advantage and pick up his life before it was damaged and washed away by time.
Touching.
FAFAKEANIMEGIRL
August 15, 2016
Mixed Feelings
(Check out my profile for a link to my site containing more up-to-date reviews and bonus media!) Pendulum is a 2012 animated short film, and throughout its three minutes the short features a clock’s swinging pendulum to show the passage of time and transition the images of a man’s marriage. I was worried this would be like another short film called House of Small Cubes in that it aims for the heart strings but by featuring such a generic life it doesn’t gain the impact from pulling off such worn sentiments in art. To my surprise, Pendulum is far more personal and doesn’t try to representevery man’s life so much as a specific one, and thus its emotional impact is more defined and we know the actual significance of the imagery as it actually feels like the narration of a man’s subconscious hang-ups. Which are those of love, indulgence, and regret. The minimalistic sketch style is distinctive enough, and the pendulum transitions are allowed a more dynamic, emotional rhythm when paired with occasional zooms that do away with the moving, circular frame but transfer that kinetic energy into rotating panning shots of critical moments. It’s a solid watch, and touched me a bit. The short is set to alternative rock band Muse’s “Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)”.
