SNAPSHOT
Troubled by his own reoccurring transformations, a restless backpacker seeks his place in the world. Through a mysterious encounter in a concrete building in the midst of a barren swampland, he hopes to have finally found such a place. (synopsis via YouTube Short of the Week)
Concrete, despite its many and varied uses, often gets a hard rap (no pun intended) from people.
It’s too grey, it’s too hard, it’s not pretty, it’s lacking in any kind of personality … the list goes on and on.
And yet in the sublimely beautifully and emotionally resonant short film Concrete, directed by Pirmin Bieri, Aira Joana, Nicolas Roth and Luca Struchen, this material is instrumental in the spiritual transformation of a mysterious man who is undergoing some fairly major physical changes.
Troubled by who or what he is becoming, this man finds answers in a brutalist concrete tower, the kind of answers that can transform someone as the official statement by the filmmakers, which admits to some soul searching of their own, makes beautifully clear.
“When we are young, there is a question that bothers the majority of us: What is my purpose in life? There is a grand notion that we’ve all been put on this Earth to serve some greater good, to find our natural calling and it makes perfect sense that a group of soon-to-be graduated students would make a film centred around these ideas. Concrete, a Lucerne School of Art and Design production, employs a stunning blend of 3D & 2D animation to transports its viewers to a world of brutalist architecture, where its probing protagonist embarks on a journey of self-discovery.” (via YouTube)
It is a beautiful and enriching way to spend under 10 minutes of your life and who knows, you might just find the answers you are looking for.