Genre (1996) User Reviews

A very nice student film...

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 8 September 2009]

While I doubt if I'll ever give a Don Hertzfeldt cartoon a 10 (since his animation style is so simple), this short film shows that you don't need a lot of fancy colors of computer generated animation in order to make a good film. It's extremely simple yet makes people laugh--and most of the time, that's why you watch a cartoon.

Apparently this was a student film made while Hertzfeldt was in college. It consists of a cute animated animal that is manipulated by the hand of the artist. As the artist announces genre after genre, the creature is shoved into the genre--and usually results in him getting beaten up or bludgeoned or worse! In many ways, it's like the old Daffy Duck cartoon where the same sort of thing occurs, though Hertzfeldt's is more senselessly violence---which I like! Overall, super-simple but very funny. Just be sure to watch the credits.

" the pretentious student film?"

[ackstasis · 7/10 · 20 February 2010]

'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.

A genre all its own

[Mr-Fusion · 7/10 · 6 March 2017]

"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

Marvelous, quite mad and twisted! More, please!

[llltdesq · 10/10 · 19 October 2002]

Although I shudder to think what this says about me, I love this short! In my own defense, let me also state that I loved The Man Who Planted Trees (what that apparent dichotomy says, who knows? Who cares?) and I'm a prince of a fellow currently in frog mode. But I digress.

A poor rabbit finds himself trapped in a situation that would reduce Franz Kafka to one gigantic twitch and takes the viewer down a rabbit hole that would send Lewis Carroll out of the room, screaming incoherently as he ran. Why this didn't get nominated for an Oscar (even a student nomination) I'll never understand. A must for any fan of films, particularly the demented ones (the films, I mean, not the fans) and well worth tracking down. I found it on a Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation and I believe it's to be released (tentatively, anyway) sometime next year by the animator as part of a compilation of all his animated shorts. Most highly recommended!

The Best of a Short Career

[tedg · 30 May 2005]

Hertzfeldt is widely known because he is active in organizations and because he did some really sick and funny stuff that was rejected by the Family Channel. This has found an audience through file sharing (and festivals) and has built quite an audience.

Unfortunately, most of the other stuff he did was no good or unoriginal. Except this.

He just seems to have trouble finding a creative writer to match his vision and twisted views.

This IS a student film, and avowedly so. This IS almost certainly a response to a specific assignment. And it is crudely drawn in places. But it is clever and worth watching. If he never did anything else, this alone would place him above the "Shrek" crew in my book.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Simple, but brilliant

[Horst_In_Translation · 8/10 · 11 July 2015]

"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".

"RADIOACTIVE EBOLA CARROTS"

[framptonhollis · 7/10 · 25 May 2018]

'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'.

Another terrific example of Hertzfeldts and his brilliant mind

[rbverhoef · 8/10 · 9 May 2005]

'Genre'is another fine animated comedy short from the brilliant and twisted mind of animator Don Hertzfeldt. Here he draws a rabbit on a piece of paper and puts the poor thing through all kind of movie genres. The rabbit plays a part in a romantic film, the science fiction film, the porno film. Then the animator slowly loses his ideas and he starts combining genres and create new ones, so suddenly the rabbit stars in a disaster porno film, just to name one.

After 'Ah, L'Amour', already a fine comedy, Hertzfeldt improves his animation and his comedy with 'Genre'. The short is inventive, perfectly animated, twisted and therefore probably not that great for everybody, and brilliant in how it uses such a simple idea in the most effective way possible. For the follow ups including 'Billy's Ballon' and 'Rejected' can be said the same. You should not miss any of them.

Amazing Use of a Few Seconds

[Hitchcoc · 10/10 · 15 July 2019]

What a marvelous film. The artist draws an animated bunny and then subjects him to one tortuous moment after another. In doing so, he runs through just about every movie genre that exists, and some that don't. It is in an incredibly simple style that works so well. My favorite was when the rabbit finally eats a carrot and then makes an amazing discovery.

This film is hilarious!

[Steph-3 · 10/10 · 30 December 1998]

This is the funniest short animation I've seen since "Bambi Meets Godzilla." The depictions of familiar genres ("romantic comedy," "the buddy film") are funny, but the combinations that follow are outstanding.

Genre

[Rectangular_businessman · 10/10 · 11 August 2012]

Clever exercise of experimental animation, directed by Don Hertzfeldt (The same director of brilliant shorts such as "Rejected" and "Everything will be OK") which explores several of the archetypes and conventions present in the different cinematic genres, parodying or even combining them through the main character of this short.

The final result is something effective and memorable, which could be easily compared with some another animated masterpiece, "Duck Amuck", in the sense that both shorts explore in a fascinating, creative and hilarious way the differences of each genre and the relationship of one indecisive animator and its animated character.

Both are brilliant and different at the same time, and both are outstanding examples of animation that have to be seen.

10/10

Fun-ny!!

[furvus-Ahto4353 · 10/10 · 10 November 2005]

Tummy-aching funny! The rabbit gets all of my sympathies, getting his ears ripped off, being fed Ebola carrots, abducted by little green aliens, etc... Don Hertzfeld's cartoons are so anarchistically (if there is such a word) funny that they can only be compared to someone like Tex Avery or Bill Plympton. There's a rabbit that has to go through a series of film genres, from romantic film to porno film etc.. and when the drawer runs out of imagination, he makes up his own genres, like sci-fi musical or porno disaster film... which the rabbit has to endure.

If you watch this one, you must also see his "Ah, L'Amour" (absolutely hilarious, a guy innocently asks women for a date or not even that, just how are they doing, and gets flayed, chainsawed, stabbed in the eyeballs,etc), "Lily and Jim", and "Rejected".

"Lily and Jim" is about a blind date gone horribly wrong... "Rejected" is supposed to contain some commercials that were commissioned by some companies from Don Hertzfeldt but rejected at sight..:D Which is not true, it's a fictional film, but very funny as such:D. "I live in a bucket!"