If you could go backwards or forwards in your own life, when would you go?
Would you rush to see what your first house looks like? Perhaps you’d like to see your future children. Maybe even go back to your childhood, when everything seemed simpler, writes Amina Ali.
This is the premise for Job, Joris and Marieke’s Oscar-nominated short A Single Life. In the almost two-and-a-half-minute runtime, a young woman named Pia receives a mysterious record and figures out that she can use it to travel through her life.
As it turns out, Pia is not very satisfied with living in the moment and must use the record at every opportunity.
The tune in question – also titled A Single Life – is upbeat. However, its lyrics cleverly call out to Pia, warning her that she should “slow down, take it slow. Just a single life. You know there won’t be a second time.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the end of Pia’s story. But despite this, you can’t help but laugh as she naively skips through time with no thought to the consequences.
Credit must go to the animators. While the CGI style looks quite simple, an eagle-eyed viewer can catch all the tiny details. The candle wax melting over time. The change in photos on the wall. A hospital bed cleverly hidden in the background.
It even seems that Pia is well travelled, which she would have figured out if she wasn’t in such a rush for the next part of life.
If anything, A Single Life should serve as a lesson to its viewers. Don’t wish your life away. Take it slow.
