Opera (2020)

Opera Review

Opera is a 2020 South Korean/American animated directed by Erick Oh. It’s the most artistic Oscar nominee this year.

This film offers a non-narrative look at humanity (religion, class struggle, racism, war and terrorism) on a loop at a massive scale as it is all represented on a big pyramid. It’s unlike anything else I’ve seen in animation as this entirely original take on human history with each and every section of the pyramid depicting something positive or negative about humanity. That contrast was strikingly achieved while the highlight is the war and division theme as evidenced by one section of the pyramid starting a war with the result being two divergent sections that also later start fighting.

It’s a brutal, but honest take on the humans’ tendency to divide and wage war, but at the end of the day the light always comes at the end of the tunnel. The animation is simply gorgeous and immensely artistic, but also undeniably accomplished as it surely must have been highly difficult to composite all of these different parts into a coherent whole. Every single screen has something interesting going for it that it almost becomes impossible to catch and understand all of it, but still the sobering effect is unquestionably strong. The score is epic too.

Opera is a complicated, but honest take on the best and worst of humanity. The animation is highly accomplished and its effect is impressively striking.

My Rating – 4.5