La Maison en Petits Cubes

I watched Kunio Kato’s La Maison en Petits Cubes (Tsumiki no ie) animated short film on youtube last night. It was a wonderful short film. It won Oscar Award for Best Animated Short Film. Its art has that soft and grainy texture of a pencil sketch, rendered with great composition and sensitivity to color.

It’s about an lonely old man in a town that slowly becomes submerged. While everyone else fled the town, he keeps on placing more and more cubes on top of his house to escape from the slowly rising water. One day he’s forced to scuba down to the submerged parts of his house and relives sweet and bitter memories from the times he spend down there. Memories that are irreplacable, sad inevitability of death and life of loneliness. These powerful feelings slowly creep into me while I was watching it....
La Maison en Petits Cubes is a great piece of art that beautifully complements a great story, and music… This film truly deserves the Oscar.