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A trapped man goes to extreme lengths to clean a dirty room. THE COCOON is used with permission from David Shen Miller. Learn more at A man finds himself trapped inside a room, his feed muddied from the dirty floor. Unable to get out, he spots a broom nearby and tries to clean the dirty floor. He succeeds, perhaps thinking he will be freed, but then he realizes he has left dirty footprints from working to wipe away the old ones. Stuck in this paradox, the man attempts to solve the riddle he's found himself in. He tries to clean his feet; he tries to find a way of walking on the wall instead. But no matter what he does, the room will never become entirely clean. At his lowest point, though, he finds a way to solve his problem -- and realizes that perhaps it wasn't such a problem in the first place. Directed, written and animated by David Shen Miller and produced by Andrew Seth Cohen and Ryan Kieffer of Confidential Creative, this intriguing animated short operates on a metaphorical level, using animation's inherent elasticity and freedom to explore deeply psychological terrain with a well-paced, compelling narrative. The 2-D animation is both hand-drawn and computer-generated. The style has an elegant simplicity, with clean yet evocative lines, expressive movement and a sparse color palette of black, white and shades of gray. It's pared down in look and feel, with a man trapped in a box-like room with a dirtied floor. He makes Herculean efforts to clean the room, only to realize that his efforts keep leaving dirty footprints behind to clean again. The box-like room takes on symbolic meaning, as a mental trap the man has found himself him. The man almost gives up in frustration and despair, unable to find a way out of this trap. He's given himself a Sisyphean task, with no real solution in sight, despite all his efforts. But then, he finds a way to transform the mess and imperfection around him into something else entirely. This transformation brings color, texture and a certain lyricism into the film, and the empty, daunting sterility of the box becomes a site of possibility, freedom and joy, aided by an expressive and emotive musical score. Magical, imaginative and elegant, this final movement of THE COCOON is an uplifting experience to watch. Ultimately its narrative is a relatable one to anyone who's suffered from blinkered thinking, rigid perfectionism, isolation or any other cognitive traps that have felt like burdens to bear. Its solution also bears relevance: finding beauty and self-acceptance in imperfection, allowing experience to flow instead of controlling it and celebrating nature. In this film, that age-old wisdom is rendered in an experience that reminds us of the lightness and joy within us, leading out of the box and into the wider world.
