The craziest cartoon ever. On the Internet, there is quite a lot of interest in Soviet psychedelic animation. Cartoons such as “His Wife the Chicken”, “In the Blue Sea, in the White Foam”, “Pot”, “Left to Right” are regulars of all kinds of ratings of crazy cartoons. It is very surprising that the cartoon, which is clearly no less, if not more crazy, passes the attention of the bloggers who make up these ratings. And this is where the most selective absurdity happens. It is here that hardened sea waves are sawed so that you can walk on them barefoot. This is where the statue begins to jump on the rope. This is where the chicken hatches the glasses from which the eyes hatch. There are many similar surreal plot moves, and each of them is only a small part of the story shown. Combined with the lack of interest in this cartoon among bloggers, it is not so easy to find it by describing individual moments.
At the same time, this entire rich set of visual puns for cheerful relaxing music is framed by everyday scenes that give the unrestrained fantasies of animators a certain general meaning. This is all happening for a reason, but shows a story of redemption. The original Estonian title of the cartoon can be translated as “respite”. I remember the words from the song: while we look at the hands of the clock, our time is running out. We can escape from the introduction of routine reality into a world of fun fantasies, but only for a while. As long as we are alive, reality will get us sooner or later. And all the problems we face in reality, we carry with us, within ourselves. Therefore, after adventures in timelessness, the main character remains the same and with the same problems. He may feel like a demiurge and an arbiter of justice, but not forever. The rapid change of various images emphasizes the transience of being and everything that happens to us.
This cartoon caused me to associate with the report of a neurophysiologist who survived a stroke. When certain functions of the brain are disrupted, fundamental concepts that seem independent of our consciousness disappear. That I am I, that I am the external world given to me in sensation, seems to be an indisputable truth. But at the moment of a stroke, the feeling of being isolated from the world disappears. So here, getting rid of the sense of time, as something unpleasant and overwhelming, a form of inner feeling according to Kant, the main character acquires a sense of freedom and unity with the world. But just as a person experiencing a stroke is helpless and needs urgent help to survive, so being in a state of freedom caused by giving up a sense of time is not a normal state. We can give up our sense of time for a while to take a break from routine reality. And this is what we can do together with the main character of the cartoon.
9 out of 10