Das Rad (Wheel)

Directed by Eric Armstrong

Germany 2003

8 minutes



An Oscar-nominated short film in the 75th annual Academy Awards, Das Rad is a must see. This short film delectably examines human development from the past to the future (and you dare compare short films to feature presentation). You wouldn't, in a millineum, have guessed the protagonist(s) in this particular film are stones. That's right, rocks! How could this be? Rocks have no issue. What could they possible understand about human development? That my friend, is the excellence of cinematography.



At first, the stones' singular problem was the continual growth of tree moss upon their animated existence. In their stationary position, they watched as humans began to contruct houses, roads, and modes of transportation over many years. These developments eventually became a gigantic metropolis and, seemingly, the stones would be destroyed. However, the great metropolis fell and, once again, moss began to grow on the stones.

Perhaps, the most intriguing aspects of this short is time and motion. On one hand, the timespan explored is historically extended; meaning it extends from the pre-historic Ice Age to some time in the future. On the other, motion is rapid - in regards to the length of time explored in the narrative - yet, controlled by a stationary "environment." For the length of the film, the camera, with the exception of its various angles, maintains focus upon this stationary environment. While time is, certainly, accelerated in the world surrounding the stationary environment the connecting idea becomes the wheel. basically, immobile, so, . maintain the controlled or stationary aspects of motion which, for the most part, is realistic because stones are, . However, the environment surrounding their stationary environment changes rapidly so as to cover the surrounding this e stationary Regarding timespan covered within the narrative but not so fast that the viewer doesn't receive the and time stands stillSeemingly, it's impossible to divulge everything detail about this period in eight minutes. This film, however, comes extremely close to achieving the impossible, but, not without motion. An eight-minute narrative lasting e a story in eight minutes, one realizes Motion, inevitably, e in this film, seeminglyHowever, Das Rad, in rapiditiy, there, certainly is alot of events occuring duriing this time. realistically, involves which - considering the length of the film is, but, eight minutes - divulges, in excellence, the uniqueness of short films. None of this would be possible without rapid movements. Recollecting, the camera was stationary, yet revealed various angles and it was reveals the Remembering the film -itself - is, but, eight minutes in length, the idea of incorporating from a time period to and actually telling a story over this time period is absolutely astounding. times beyond a time span of human which squeeze the time span of from beginning to end the f