Critics reviews

Even at his most profound, Hertzfeldt never errs on the side of pomposity: The grandiose design of his universe is wittily undercut by the signature naivete of his drawing style, in turn elevated by the digitized iridescence of his shifting backdrops. Likewise, even his most despairing prognoses are cut through with his playful command of irony and human perception; the unaffected, non sequitur-strewn voice work of his niece, Winona Mae, is the most endearing of the film's myriad marvels.

Hertzfeldt has a knack for blending philosophical truths ("Now is the envy of all of the dead") with random child observations and babbling. The primitive yet highly expressive and endearing animations recall web comic "Hyperbole and a Half," with a science fiction twist.

One of the best films of 2015. Hertzfeldt's great achievement is to take this story about a little girl who is visited by her clone from 227 years in the future and create a hilariously bleak dystopic vision—through his characteristically minimal stick figures no less—while commenting on a contemporary culture that is already headed in that direction.

These days, no mini-movie compilation feels complete without the animator Don Hertzfeldt, whose dreamy "World of Tomorrow" sends us into a future where deteriorating copies of humanity seek answers that only their original selves can provide. A trippy meditation on the significance of memory, the film turns a meeting between a toddler and her third-generation clone into a sad song of innocence and experience.

[Hertzfeldt] was at the Vienna Independent Shorts festival recently to talk rapt audiences through all of his work, including his dazzling new World of Tomorrow, partly voiced by his four-year-old niece and his first venture into digital animation after his labour-intensive hand drawing. [It's] a sci-fi that's teeming with idiosyncratic philosophical musings on memory and loss.

It's utterly fantastic, in terms of both of its pseudo-primitive visual style (stick figures in abstract sci-fi landscapes) and its poignant juxtaposition of innocence and sad experience. So long as Sundance continues to recognize and make room for singular, uncompromising visions like Hertzfeldt's (and Maddin's), it'll be worth the trek and the cold and the long lines and the laughably rinky-dink venues and the endless hype.