In SHAPE (2010)
One day while I was walking down a busy city street and watching the surroundings, it suddenly seemed that everyone around me was controlled by the shape of squares. People were rushing along and filing through a small square train station entrance to board boxy subway cars, or they were riding in rectangular buses and vehicles on their way to and from block-like homes and office buildings, where they lived and worked in right-angled rooms and cubicles. Even their view of the outside world while riding and working was circumscribed by a seemingly endless array of square and rectangular windows. To me at that moment, the boundaries of their lives seemed so rectilinear and constricted. It was as though the shape of squares had cast a lengthening shadow on everyone's existence, obscuring people's bright and open-ended awareness with the dreary repetitiveness of day-to-day living, and in a way that no one even noticed.
In this short film, In SHAPE, the protagonist, Masa was struck by something he had never noticed before at his ordinary breakfast. From the paper he was holding in his hands to his computer, desk, windows, he quickly realizes all the objects around him were shaped more or less like a square or a rectangle. Frightened, he attempts to escape the walls of blocks only to find the world was built on more blocks and squares, manufactured in mass quantity and indistinguishable shape in order to standardize the way we led our lives. He eventually manages to find round, circular objects which refer to relief and more natural shape, but the struggle to find balance between the dark, ominous force of the industrialized world and the peace of mind does not cease to exist.
It is not difficult to be enthralled in the mundane details of our ordinary lives. And when we finally encounter a moment that allows us to open the eyes to see the shadow hidden beneath our conscious world, it can be sometimes frightening or alienating. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that the shadow cannot exist without the presence of light which brings hope and inspiration to those who struggle in despair. But at the end of the day, life consists of both brief strokes of happiness and unexciting, gloomy series of chores, of which aspect I wanted to depict through this short film.
SCREEN CAPTURES
In this short film, In SHAPE, the protagonist, Masa was struck by something he had never noticed before at his ordinary breakfast. From the paper he was holding in his hands to his computer, desk, windows, he quickly realizes all the objects around him were shaped more or less like a square or a rectangle. Frightened, he attempts to escape the walls of blocks only to find the world was built on more blocks and squares, manufactured in mass quantity and indistinguishable shape in order to standardize the way we led our lives. He eventually manages to find round, circular objects which refer to relief and more natural shape, but the struggle to find balance between the dark, ominous force of the industrialized world and the peace of mind does not cease to exist.
It is not difficult to be enthralled in the mundane details of our ordinary lives. And when we finally encounter a moment that allows us to open the eyes to see the shadow hidden beneath our conscious world, it can be sometimes frightening or alienating. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that the shadow cannot exist without the presence of light which brings hope and inspiration to those who struggle in despair. But at the end of the day, life consists of both brief strokes of happiness and unexciting, gloomy series of chores, of which aspect I wanted to depict through this short film.
SCREEN CAPTURES
