In the world of independent animation, Don Hertzfeldt is a giant. He's won nearly 100 awards for his work and his squiggly style is instantly recognizable. If imitation is the most sincere from of flattery, Mr. Hertzfeldt should be flattered that his style was mimicked for more than one commercial. (He turns down all advertising offers.) Now all of his films, up to and including 2005's The Meaning of Life, are compiled on one DVD; Bitter Films (named after Don's production company.) With copious bonus material that looks at every aspect of the movie making process and some wonderful cartoons, this is a great disc. It's only available through the Bitter Films web site, but this is one DVD that is worth the extra hassle. (Of course it's not too much hassle, just click on the link to the right of this review.)

Don draws all of his cartoons by hand, and even eschews using cels. He draws each and every frame on paper from scratch, and since he doesn't work from a script, this gives him plenty of room to improvise as he goes. This drawing each image over and over again is time consuming, naturally, but it also gives his cartoons a squiggly style that has become his trademark.

Even if you don't recognize Don Hertzfeldt's name, you've probably seen at least one of his cartoons. (These copyrighted works are all on Youtube, and in poor quality I might add.) His animation isn't as bizarre as Bill Plympton's, since his characters are all stick figures, but the shorts are just as comically absurd and surreal as Plympton's work. If you love one, you'll likely enjoy the other's work too.

The films included in this collection are (listed in chronological order):

Ah, L'Amour- any guy who has ever had trouble getting a date will relate to this comic tale of a man who can't seem to get things started. Hilarious.

Genre - another student film where Don, with the help of an animated rabbit, looks at some of the different types of movie genres. The live action - animation interaction is great.

Lily and Jim - another dating film. Lily and Jim are set up on a blind date, and we get to see what each of them are thinking before, during, and after there dinner meeting. It's so comical because the film so accurately captures the awkwardness and uncertainty of a first date.

Billy's Balloon - Billy is playing with his balloon and rattle, but soon the balloon starts to play with him.

Rejected - this took a year and a half to make and is the funniest short on the disc. Don was approached by a fictional TV network, the Family Learning Channel, to create a series of promo pieces to show between shows. He made five, and they were all instantly rejected by the network and never aired. At about the same time, the Johnson & Mills Corporation hired Don for a series of commercials for their products. Like the Family Learning Channel, the company rejected all of Don's work outright. These commercials are all brought together in this short. There's a strong anti-advertising theme throughout these but, as Don notes in the optional trivia track, that hasn't stopped corporations from trying to hire him to do real commercials.

The Meaning of Life - This project took four years to complete and is Hertzfeldt's most ambitious piece on this disc. The twelve minute short doesn't go for the laughs that his previous works did, but is more profound instead. We get to see life evolve on Earth, from a simple creature to human beings, and then witness what happens after the humans manage to exterminate themselves. Different from the other shorts on this disc, but it is a masterpiece none the less.

This disc contains six shorts which run 47 minutes total. Don't let the short run time fool you. That represents ten years of work, and the quality more than makes up for the brevity.

Audio:

These films all have stereo audio tracks and The Meaning of Life gives viewers the choice of stereo or DD 5.1. The audio quality varies, but it's generally very good. The soundtracks have been cleaned up and don't suffer from the usual problems that independent productions have; distortion, noise, and the like. The early cartoons have a very limited range, but that's not surprising given the origins of the films. Overall a nice sounding disc.

Video:

These squiggly cartoons look great. They've been mastered in HD, and now, as Don notes in the booklet that accompanies the disc, "you can see every wiggle and blemish in these clearer than ever." He's only partially joking. In many of the early shorts there is dirt or a hair on the lens for a bit. That was the way these movies were originally filmed, and not a fault of the transfer. The lines are tight and the colors (where there are colors) look strong. Since these are such minimalist cartoons, usually with no backgrounds and often with only a stick figure in the frame, I really can't find anything wrong with the disc. The lines are tight and the image is firm. Aliasing, blocking and other digital defects are nonexistent. These cartoons look great.

Extras:

This disc is absolutely packed with bonus material that gives a lot of information about Don Hertzfeldt and how he goes about making his art. First off there are the Bitter Film Archives, an amazing set of illustrated text pages that talk about each of these shorts. Some of the pages have still images while others include animated clips including the cartoons Don did as a teenager. If you have any questions about how these were made, this 140 (!) page encyclopedia will most probably answer it.

If the Archives were the only extra, I'd be happy, but there's a lot more. Watching the Grass Grow condenses the drawing of the movie The Meaning of Life down to 12 minutes. Don apparently filmed much of the time he spent working on this short, and by taking a few frames from each minute, you get a condensed version of what it was like. These jerky drawing sequences are interspersed with the first rough animation that he created for the film.

There are a series of three cartoons that Don did for The Animation Show, a feature film comprised of animated shorts, as well as a short featurette about the project. There are deleted scenes from Lily and Jim as well as commentary tracks to The Meaning of Life (dealing with the special effects) and Lily and Jim. The later features voice actors Robert May and Karin Anger. May also does a commentary for Rejected.

Wrapping things up are a trivia subtitle option for Rejected and a trailer for the movie "Everything Will Be OK". *whew* That's a lot of stuff, and none of it is fluff.

Final Thoughts:

These are great cartoons. To be able to get ten years worth of an animator's work on one DVD is a great thing, but when that is supplemented by so much bonus material it becomes a must-buy. This set of comic and surreal cartoons comes Highly Recommended.