Shashinkan

This beautifully poetic short is nothing less than a masterpiece. The whole animation has an elegantly layered evolution to it. The story is delivered in several segments, or snapshots, where we watch as a photographer struggles to bring the smile out of a young child. Photography plays a major role in this anime. The whole movie is void of any speech or talking. There are sublet background noises such as moans, laughs, and ones of nature. But this is all layered over with a classical soundtrack which if anything compliments the piece. The styling reminds of the Professor Layton Games, especially with the coloring. As we are presentedwith a new snapshot, the time frame skips forwards a few years and we watch as the child grows up. The layering comes into play here as well. For instance, as the family descends the stairs to the photographers home, the landscape of neighboring houses is layered on top. The setting was placed during the first world war, though that was more layered to the background. If you were to see family photos from that time, you'd have hinted that war was taking place but there would be nothing overwhelming nor obvious as to how bad it was. This is nothing short of genius as overall, the whole story is presented to us as a family album. If you were to flick through one of your parent's albums, you'd see years skip by before your eyes. You'll see a story play out as how family members come and go. This whole concept was clearly taken into consideration and folded into this nice little 16 minute short. As it is short, it is well worth the watch and the story itself is heartwarming, to say the least. So if you have a few minutes to spare, if you need to take a little break. I suggest this is a nice way to do it.

This was just great. It's 16 minutes long, a short you can look up on YouTube anytime you want, and all it does is follow a photographer across his life and his interactions with one family, but it does a lot more with that time than I anticipated. The whole thing is done without an ounce of dialogue (I couldn't even read the written words on screen because they were all subbed in Russian), but everything communicates crystal clear. It's not breaking the mold for narratives or character writing, but it's a beautiful series of snapshots of lives lived through waves of joy and tragedy,and that last moment still hits despite only getting limited insight into these characters. There's something exceptional in that. The animation is great and evocative as well. Highly recommend everyone watches this.

Shashinkan was a 16 minute short I found while browsing YouTube and at first, I was a bit opposed to it because the art style unnerved me. But as I went on, I unearthed the true essence of this short. And while I can appreciate both its narrative and overall storytelling, I can't praise it too much. For starters, the run time is by far the weakest aspect of this video, everything that happens besides when the young girl is getting a picture goes by so quickly and unmentioned that it simply becomes a faint afterthought. The beginning scene, her mother almost has no placein the story until the very end where they use her portrait to steer you in some emotional way. Same thing with the husband in the military who has no actual standing in providing substance to the plot until they decide to throw in sub-themes of war and loss. I understand the sub-themes are a way of progressing the morale of the picture and I can appreciate it but a lot of the oomph is removed when much of the emotional investment depended upon characters who I was never invested in. And no, I'm not some robot who didn't take anything away from the short just because of these inconveniences. I couldn't stop a smile from creeping up my face as I watched the final scene because I, in that moment had a sense of relatability. Just like her, perhaps I should smile more, and in general just see the better parts of life. As their town is getting urbanized and less people visit the store, a subtle detail I enjoyed, they are still able to smile after going through what they have gone through. A powerful and emotional message to be sure, but one that is so barely fleshed out that I really only found myself feeling anything at the climax. I'm feeling a decent 5 on this one.

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