Narrated like a children's story, ‘A Snowflake into the Night' is about how a snowflake falls to earth and keeps changing shape and form until, in the end, it sees a snowflake to realize that life has gone one full circle. The continuous metamorphosis across the seasons starts with living beings and as it finds superior non-living things, the change seems perpetual.
“A Snowflake into the Night” is screening at Japan Cuts 2019
The stop motion animation renders the narrative effectively and the effort that has gone into this short is evident. The voices of Yukitomo Tochino and Yoko Yuki make the experience very livid. The animation runs within a square with rounded edges resembling a mobile app and I wonder whether the reference is towards our fleeting interest in the digital world and how without end we keep moving from one fad to another.
There may be several ideas the tale tries to flush out. There are no ends to desires as they keep coming one after the other like waves and the sooner you realize that you are perfect the way you are, there will be peace. Desire brings sorrow and there are doctrines which suggest not having desires as the path to enlightenment. This is like the exact opposite. What if all desires are fulfilled, would you then be happy or would there be a stage where you would want to go back to being your older self?
