Fantastic!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This short has been nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be spoilers ahead:This nicely animated short, with the look and feel of a painting, is about a little pig with a big and thankless duty, that of the dam keeper. Inherited from his father, it's his responsibility to keep the windmill turning in order to keep the black clouds of pollution from coming into his town.Shunned and bullied for being dirty and withdrawn, no one, adult or child seems to know (or perhaps they know but don't care) that he's carrying such a heavy load. He's a misfit, an outcast, sitting alone at the back of the rail car to and from school. Until a new kid comes to school.He's a fox who sketches and he chooses to sit next to the pig the first day on the way to school. The fox becomes popular immediately and at recess that first day, he accidentally drops his sketch pad in the classroom on his way out to play. The pig retrieves it and looks through it laughing at the sketches.The next morning, the fox, looking forlorn at the loss of his sketchbook, brightens up when he sees it next to the pig and the two begin to bond as friends, over this and other, less pleasant, experiences. The pig is happy for the first time.Through an unfortunate turn of events, the pig is crushed and disheartened, causing him to forget his obligations and the windmill stops, letting in the polluted clouds. Once certain incorrect assumptions are cleared up, the pig races to set things right. The short ends rather dramatically and in a most satisfying way.I've seen all five nominated shorts and though I have no doubt that Feast will probably win, having been seen by more people, while Feast is extremely good, I prefer The Dam Keeper and I hope it wins. All five are worth seeing and they are available for viewing. This short is most highly recommended.

This short tells the story of a pig who's responsible for "keeping the dam", a critically important job inherited from his father. We're shown that this involves winding a crank tied to a windmill on top of a dam overlooking a small town. This job must be performed at regular intervals or else the town will be consumed by...uh...water?...no, it's a dark cloud of...pollution?...What?!?I was very confused and distracted by why the windmill on top of the dam needed to be wound, then later in the film we do get to see what happens when the dam doesn't get "kept" properly....I thought we were seeing dark water over-topping the dam and flooding the town, but it is later described as "dark clouds". The animation was so rough and impressionistic, it wasn't at all clear what we were expected to be seeing.So...the windmill isn't a windmill but a giant fan, powered by a wound-up spring, which blows the pollution clouds away? Why is it on top of a dam? Since it's on the dam anyway, why isn't it powered by the water pressure that the dam is holding back? Also, if this job, whatever it is, is so important to the health of the whole town, why is it left in the hands of a grade-schooler?The titular part of the story made so little sense that it took away much of my interest in appreciating the other part of the story, about isolation, loneliness, and bullying that this youngster experiences at the hands of his school classmates. When a new kid, a fox, comes to town, a unlikely friendship develops. That story was interesting and touching, but it would have been more effective without any dam keeping.

'THE DAM KEEPER': Four Stars (Out of Five)An 18 minute animated short; which was nominated for an Academy Award, for Best Animated Short Film, at the upcoming 87th Academy Awards. It was written and directed by Robert Kondo and Daisuke 'Dice' Tsutsumi and it's narrated by Lars Mikkelsen. The film tells the story of a future world of animals, that rely on a pig to constantly operate a large windmill dam; in order to keep dangerous pollution out. The pig is an outsider, who's constantly bullied by other animals at school. That changes when a new student comes to town; a friendly fox that befriends him. Things suddenly go really well for the pig, until he feels unexpectedly betrayed. The short is very dark and kind of frightening for kids; I know my eight-year old nephew thought it was pretty scary (but he also loved it). I could really relate to how harassed and somewhat alone the pig felt, due to the constant bullying. I think this is one of the stronger 2015 Oscar nominated animated shorts; because of it's relatability to kids. It's also really well made and bizarrely interesting!Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://youtu.be/D17O2xOoOCw

I just finished watching the Oscar nominated animated shorts (including: Me and My Moulton, Disney Feast, A Single Life, The Bigger Picture, etc.), and the one that stood out the most for me was "The Dam Keeper". It really struck the chords in making the emotional impact so beautiful and haunting with a shred of hope at the same time. Given how this was created by the Former Pixar Art Directors of Ratatouille, Toy Story 3 and Monsters University, Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo (now in their own Independent studio a la Tonko House in Berkeley, CA), their attention to digital painting animation (using TVPaint to make pencil tests, and animate the paintings using Photoshop over the 3D models) brings to life of a storybook illustration, or a series of paintings (differing from Alexander Petrov's paint-on-glass animation technique) with their first effort into storytelling that managed to worked so well. After waiting for a year of film festival showings, it finally got the public release alongside the competitive shorts. It may not be one of the perfect shorts that has no flaws to find, but it has enough to call it one of the best animated shorts with the best technique, the best set of themes and characters, and a clear plot line throughout it. Running at 18 minutes long (yeah it's the longest of the Oscar nominees), the story of The Dam Keeper opens with a narration by an adult version of a pig, named...well, Pig. He must check on the dam windmill spinning to avoid the air polluted clouds from sinking into the town. That and also deal with bullying by his classmates for not getting involved in social activities, being too dirty (since they don't know what he has been doing this whole time), and the fact that he's very silent (just like all the characters, but only resort to grunts and gestures than words). One day, a new classmate enters in Pig's class named, Fox the fox (redundant much? Well the extras' names are named after species). He is an artist and a more outgoing type of person than Pig. In that case, this changes the normal routine and his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of making a friend who trust his instincts.This is my favorite of the bunch. The reason why is just the emotional impact is so strong, and you can feel much on Pig and his thoughts from his encounters on bullying, importance of friendship, and willingness to be accepted in some way (for instance, Fox). The set up with the Dam windmill checking, and the air pollution blends into the representations of Pig's dilemma and internal struggles deeply. Not to mention that the environmental theme is subtle and not too preachy. While bullying has been written one-dimensionally in past works, I feel this was handled well here because of how Pig is an introvert who is not outgoing and keeps everything to himself while the classmates assume his isolation as weird and decide to prey on him (it does happen in real life with bullying as a concern for most public schools for kids and teens, so this has some relatable value for those who have been bullied or not comfortable with opening to their concerns). I really dig Pig and Fox's friendship and their dealings with the bullies. Their sense of wonder, curiosity, fun, sympathy, and trust in each other make their bonding believable. Something tells me that there may be more stories of their adventures (could be linked back to Dice Tsutsumi's Tweet on the possibility of more Pig and Fox adventures as asked by a reviewer). The flow and pacing felt like Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki, same as the music in Joe Hisaishi fashion, despite being simple, yet it works. The animation is one of the new breaking grounds never explored as much in mainstream or independent fare (well there are some that happened). It really got me inspired to try out the type of technique to produce some day (Dice and Robert's specialty are illustration, painting, and lighting, so you can tell that they put into the depths of each scene beautifully). My only nitpick is that there wasn't much depth of Pig and Fox's classmates besides making their teasing reasonable throughout the short. It's regarding how their development grows through it all. If handled well on other classmates, the emotional impact would've been more heartbreaking and beautiful. I know it's Pig and Fox's story, but maybe show us more of the classmates' personalities than just them teasing Pig. But overall for what it is, it's one of the best animated shorts I've ever seen, up there with Fantasia segments, Higher Sky by Eric Cheng, La Luna of Pixar, the Ghibli Museum shorts in Mitaka, Frederic Back's works, Alexander Petrov's paint on glass works, Yuri Norstein's works, and Thought of You dance music video. I wish Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo along with their studio, Tonko House and animation crew members good luck in the Independent world without aid from the big studios, and keep on making more great shorts, maybe continuing Pig and Fox's story, and others in different mediums. Could it be true that they may be the American equivalent/spiritual successors of Studio Ghibli or Hayao Miyazaki/Isao Takahata? Maybe, but we'll see how it goes from there.