In the mid-decade of the 2010's, I noticed a trend in the independent animation sector: not only were artists producing and animating short films entirely on their own (most short films were subject to this as computers became more common, as funding and time for five-minute stories were no longer a subject of concern), but they were beginning to produce entire feature-length films under the same principle. It has simply become that cheap and easy with modern technology to make stories over an hour long, and artists can today do in a few years what might have taken them a decade to do on their own. They also might be using artistically-driven shortcuts to finish a movie within an acceptable amount of time. This is an exciting time for animation, but like fan-driven news blogs and podcasts and social media accounts, the novelty of having something "real" and artist-driven comes at the expense of quality-checking and editing. We'll get a lot more content, most of which couldn't have been made decades ago, but most of the new work will be (arguably) bad enough for us to reconsider if this is a better state for the art world to be in.That thought of dread has crept up on me slowly as a young adult, and I couldn't stop thinking about it while watching "My Entire High School Sinking Into The Sea." The 2D animated feature was written and directed by Dash Shaw, a cartoonist who experimented with short films in the past (the USA home video release kindly includes these shorts), each typically minute-long, experimental, collage works acting as teasers to his graphic novels. In the making-of interviews, Shaw explains with "Into The Sea" that he normally works in traditional cel-media, but this time used software like Photoshop and After Effects to make a 2D film without spending so much time making it, descrbing the process as if it was a industry-changing discovery, ignorant that 2D animators had been using this exact process for almost two decades. In comparison, Jane Samborski, the film's lead animator and long-time collaborator with Shaw, talked about the intricate details and problem-solving required during the animation process, making it clear that she is the brains behind the work, but limited by Shaw's style (although since she animated Shaw's other short films, her style might be the driving fault, so I can't be certain). If it wasn't clear, I did not go into this movie with high hopes (despite the surprisingly positive reviews it received elsewhere), only having faith in American distributor GKIDS for releasing films that I might not otherwise know about.So it was a pleasent surprise that "Into The Sea" turned out to be a better movie than I thought, albiet still not a very good one. The story follows high school student Dash Shaw (yes, the author made himself the main character), a loner with a bad personality who writes for the oft-ignored school newspaper. After a falling out with his best friend, he accidently discovers that the school's recent construction was not safe, and the entire building was doomed to collapse into the sea next to it. Minutes after discovering this, the school does exactly that, and the students try to find their way to survival, avoiding sharks and short-circuiting electricity. Most of the students die. Meanwhile, the main characters continue talking on about popularity, what they'll do after graduating, and how stupid the other person is for thinking something.The whole thing is a disaster-horror-coming-of-age-comedy, inspired loosely by live-action teen comedies of the same genre. Generally, I hate the school-set teen-comedy genre: it never portrays school realistically, it is typically written by adults talking down to younger generations, yet it sets the culture around how kids think school be, slowly making it worse than it ought to be. I don't like the themes of normal life that these types of films tackle: I watch movies to escape from life, not be reminded by how much it sucks by adults cast as teenagers. "Into The Sea" suffers from all of these traits, in addition to having students die around the main characters, but for comedic effect and not taken seriously in tone by either the characters or the film's writers. I would be lying if the film was entirely un-funny, as I did chuckle at a few lines, and I was invested to see what would ultimately happen to our heroes. But generally, this simply couldn't be the type of story I would enjoy. If you like this genre, you will probably enjoy the movie much more than I did.
But that doesn't excuse the animation. Consistent with their previous short films, the style consists of characters drawn with a black Sharpie-marker overtop a moving collage of construction paper, colored-pencil, and live-action footage. It basically looks like something you might see on the side of a bathroom stall. I admit some of the collage work in the background is clever, but could have been better utilized in a five-minute short rather than a full-length feature. Even if the style is intentional, the overall effect looks lazy and ugly. The music loops digital-synth effects, which is memorable and fits the style of the film, but the style isn't going for it. I don't know how the filmamkers were able to rangle such a top-tier Hollywood team of comedic actors for the voices (including Jason Schwartzman, Maya Rudolph, Susan Sarandon, and other memorable personalities, all of which I might suspect as fans of the artist), but their acting is hushed, barely audible over the soundtrack, as if they were recording in an apartment bedroom and trying to not wake up the neighbors. I have to givve some credit to having a consistent vision and artistic voice. But "Into The Sea" feels like the definition of a hipster-comedy-cartoon, the type fans would describe as a "masterpiece" while eating dandelions with chopsticks in a dark restaurant on the edge of California. I cannot imagine the artist ever reaching mainstream appeal, even if everyone in the world was forced to watch this film at least once. I could just be out of tune to the trends of modern culture, because I am certain films much like this will continue to appear for a long time to come.