Flatland | The Critique

In a mood to utilize the Internet connection at my home allowing unlimited download, I gave Google, the task to fetch me list of movies to be watched. And on some site, I came across the above name.  Now it was time to verify with Rotten Tomatoes, and to my surprise…………..83% users liked it!!

This is an unique animated movie released in competition with other 3D movies about a 2D world. It’s based on a novel, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott. Though the animation is crude, musical score is a mess, but makers have effectively covered various social issues like racism, chauvinism, extremism, political purges, bureaucracy with such simplicity, that their imagination deserves acknowledgement. The same goes for the inter-title cards that tell us when ‘important’ moments are about to occur, though not much humorous but an innovative attempt again

The story is set in a 2D land whose residents are all Polygons and is narrated through point of view of ‘A Square’. It seems simple, a Square having, a eye and a mouth, moving around and talking, haven’t we seen similar flicks earlier, be it Toy Story or any other. Dear friend, you are mistaken here, it’s not just imagination, it’s very close to reality too. They discuss ‘Art of Sight Recognition’………….. Just think when one polygon sees other polygon in 2D world, it just sees faces (sides) and not shape!! Interesting concept, isn’t it? These polygons are such animated, that you can see their brain, lungs and kidney, sounds crude, but think, it’s a 2D plane and has no other plane to cover the body parts.

Their social status is determined by their regularity and the number of their sides, a Circle is considered to be the "perfect" shape. Women there believe in zero figure too [;)], kidding, they are just a single line.  The stinging social satire includes a fascinating system of hierarchical white shape recognition and the threat of a colored revolution, Chromatism. The major twist, comes when square makes his evolutionary leap to the next dimension of Spaceland. Unfortunately, square’s enlightenment is so complete that not only does he return as a pariah of his own society, even his savior Sphere is offended at the suggestion that still higher gods and dimensions must exist above him. A typical example, of human nature, thinking themselves to be the Supreme being in nature!!

Verdict: Not a Must Watch, but definitely the uniqueness needs to be appreciated.

Written By: Neha Jain