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11 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
A fly's-eye view of the world, 30 October 2001
10/10
Author: Robert Reynolds (minniemato@hotmail.com) from Tucson AZ

This short, an Oscar winner, is an exceptionally detailed effort that can be a bit unsettling at first (particularly for anyone who has problems with depth-perception), but is a fascinatingly drawn and meticulously constructed animation and is a must-see if you like animation. Fortunately, it is currently in-print. Most highly recommended.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
For 1980, it's pretty good, 9 February 2008
8/10
Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

Most people seeing this film today will probably not be very excited about its graphics--after all, amazing computer generated graphics and techniques are the norm today. But for 1980, this is a truly unusual film and has a great look. The film is the world as seen by a fly. Apparently flies are color blind and everything in the film is sepia tinted. The backgrounds are all painted with a black brush and as the camera follows the path of the fly, they use a fish-eye lens to heighten the effect that you're seeing what the fly is seeing. The actual content, while interesting, isn't that important--it's more the experience of seeing the world from this unusual viewpoint that is the film.

Not surprisingly, this film received the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film and is a good film for fans of the genre. However, the casual viewer might not be so captivated by this experimental film.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
A Legy won the Oscar for Best Animated Short for 1980, 13 March 2007
10/10
Author: tavm from Baton Rouge, La.

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I just saw this 1980 animated Oscar-winning short from Hungary on Cartoon Brew linked to YouTube. It concerns the point-of-view of the fly as it whisks through various grasses, windows, rooms, and houses. Everything is line drawings with no color with the camera swooshing through in a scenic panorama of speed. Besides the buzzing, you hear piano keys being banged on, windows slamming, and someone swatting. Then you hear human footsteps as that person gets the insect and takes it to a collection of other creatures of that insect's breed...Great visuals and well deserving of the Academy Award. Hard to believe so much was packed in just 3 minutes. A Legy is well worth seeking out.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Consciousness has never seemed so alive (or dead). Possible spoilers., 20 September 1999
8/10
Author: Darragh O' Donoghue (hitch1899_@hotmail.com) from Dublin, Ireland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

As this is an East-European animation from the early 1980s, we must assume that it is An Allegory. These can be very difficult to interpret for the Western viewer. This film is probably only comprehensible to anyone who lived in Hungary at the time, each frame loaded with specific historical or cultural detail. The most that can be made out is the crushing of life - the fly begins the film very alive, hurtling through nature, and ends it squashed in a tray of other flies in a centre of civilisation - a Big House - loaded with statues and insect classifications. The paralells seem obvious. The fly's patterned halting to inspect its own shadow may be a hint of the film's own double nature.

Or it may be a dulled awakening of consciousness. This for me is the film's real achievement - the perfect mimicing of a scuttling insect's point-of-view, whirring through space, a vertiginous journey. The restless, sepiad animation is beautiful, allowing an untrammelled access live action never could, as the fly travels through sparse forest, over flat greenery, and up to the house itself.

The change from a barely sensed impulse of freedom to trapped panic is shockingly done - we move with the fly, interestedly examining the rather stiff furniture and ornaments (the apparatus of the state?) until we realise that it is these that will kill it: he will be squashed against some chair, pane or wall.

The house sequence opens with a joyous, privileged fly's eye view that would normally be denied to us, as it zooms through candles hanging from ceilings, making us rethink our own everyday accoutrements, space, even existence. Everything the fly meets is a voyage of discovery, new, not the dulled routine of a police state. This clear-eyed view can be very dangerous and must be crushed. The fly, as it tries to make its escape, can't understand, as he hits against the window, why he can see the open countryside - freedom - and yet can't escape.

The symbolism may be obvious, but it is terrifyingly effective. The brief journey from darkness through unthinking consciousness, to enforced darkness again, is awing, yet chilling. Most East-European animation seems to get lost in self-defeating, pretentious circles, but this is a wonderful film, with a clear, impassioned, angry yet humorous focus.

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