Genre (1996)

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

'Genre' is Don Hertzfeldt's second film, and, in my opinion, is much better than his first. 'Genre' is a simple film w/a simple premise that makes plenty of room for many gags of various kinds, ranging from meta humour to simple genre parody to pure absurdity to more dark and twisted black humour. It's a quick little work of animated comedy that is exceedingly fun to watch and foreshadows the brilliance and hilarity that would soon come to be in films like 'Rejection'.

"Genre" has the markings of a student film, but that's only because it feels experimental; and that's mostly in the stop-motion opening. Regardless, it's a creative mix of animation and real life (more Monty Python than "Mary Poppins") but the real trick is in how Don Hertzfeldt brings his creation to life. The main bunny protagonist (I think it's a bunny) develops a real personality in such a short time, and his anguish at the hands of his animator is hysterical.Maybe it's just that I get his sense of humor (thus far, at least) or that I admire the invention involved in such an early effort, but the man deserves my respect.7/10

"Genre" is a 5-minutes animated short film by writer and director Don Hertzfeldt. He was not even 20, when he made this student film almost 20 years ago and he was rewarded by awards bodies all over the United States. Deservedly so. By the way, despite his young age, this was already his second work as a filmmaker. If you have seen some of his other films, you will immediately recognize his style and approach to animation. It's pretty unique. Here he uses an animated rabbit to give us an insight into all kinds movie genres. And it was very nicely done. Lots of wit and creativity included in these depictions and I also liked the way one genre changed into another (buddy movie into porn) for example. Hilarious. It's nice to see Hertzfeldt make new films these days. He hasn't done anything since 2012 I knew of, but i just saw that he made another short film this year. Maybe his style is not the best for full feature film, but that's not a problem in my opinion if he keeps bringing up new short films. I hope he will get an Oscar one day. it would be very deserved with his body of work and he is definitely among my favorite animators out there. I highly recommend "Genre".

'Genre (1996)' was produced while Don Hertzfeldt was still in college, and it certainly looks like an amateur film, particularly the stop-motion sequences featuring the animator himself. However – as was the case with 'Billy's Balloon (1998)' and 'Rejected (2000)' – Hertzfeldt proves that even simple animation can be very entertaining. 'Genre' draws plenty of inspiration from Chuck Jones' self-reflexive 'Duck Amuck (1953),' in which Daffy Duck is consistently pestered by the animator who is drawing him. In 'Genre,' an unfortunate rabbit finds himself in a succession of compromising (and often bloody) situations, as his creator experiments with different movie genres. As the frustrated animator begins to run out of ideas, he starts splicing genres together, leaving the poor rabbit to fend for himself in a "porno disaster film," for example. The most enjoyable element of Hertzfeldt's film is the self-awareness of the animated rabbit, who knows that the animator (his "God") is purposefully screwing him around, and is forced to simply wear it.