Rocks

Rocks (2001)

Das Rad

Apparently, rocks are having conversations all around us, but they talk very, very slowly.

The stone-people Hew and Kew have seen a lot in their everlasting lives on top of their mountain. Therefore they're only mildly amazed by the ongoings in the valley below, they've got their own little problems to deal with - But all of a sudden, Mankind is discovering and inventing, instead of just woozeling, and this new behavior starts to threaten Hew's and Kew's stoic peacefulness...

Date of release
2001-11-01
TMDB
7.2 / 10 (60)
Runtime
8m
Genres
Animation, Comedy
Director
Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel, Heidi Wittlinger

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

Das Rad meaning "The Wheel" is a 2001 German animated short film written and directed by Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel and Heidi Wittlinger. Produced using a mixture of stop-motion, puppetry, and CGI animation, it was nominated for an Oscar in "Best Animated Short Film", but lost to The ChubbChubbs!

Production

Das Rad was created in 2000 while Stenner, Uibel and Wittlinger were studying at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg. The two stone creatures consisted of wooden bodies and eyebrows made of rubber and were shot in stop motion while the surroundings were animated by CGI.

During the shooting, before post-production began, Arvid Uibel died in 2000 at the age of 23. Stenner and Wittlinger dedicated Das Rad to him with the line “for Arvid”.

The music was by Roland Hackl and sound design by Bernd Müller.

A major theme is environmentalism. Other themes include cities, consumption, the passage of time, nature, and resources,

The main characters can be seen as spectators, possibly representing the point of view of nature itself. The narrative device of speeding up time illustrates humans' short lifespans and ephemeral effect on the environment, while the rock people illustrate the slow and ancient progression of geological time. The two narrative points of view are made conspicuous by lighting and camera differences, such as a change in the color of the sky.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended