Reflection
3:19
Added: 4 years ago
From: paxson001
Views: 1,581,192
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  • PROUD to have a filipina decent:0

    

  • I can't beleave this got 1135 dislikes, I new there was a shortage of creativet out there but that is just ridiculous...

  • moving in a way i didnt think possible... i love it!

  • Awesome ! 

  • I remember seeing this years ago when I saw it in the promoted vids 0_o

    I've tried to find this for ages, always loved it

  • i want the soundtrack....

  • THIS STORY IS REAL EVERY DAY CORPORATE GETS STRONGER AND MORE DESTRUCTIVE TO OUR HOME. we have to help him

  • is the story real?

  • brilliant work! any chance you could send me the soundtrack, its driving me nuts:D

  • @quitchiboo sweet, thanks. pretty sure i have an mp3 of it somewhere - send me a message with your e-mail address in it and i'll see if i can dig it up.

  • i thought that is was going to be the tool song...not intrested

  • @Lethfarrdo. Not everything has a message, and some things seem to have more than one. Just watch and the meaning will unveil itself if it will, yknow?

  • Love the imagraiy

  • awesome

  • I'm sad to say I don't really understand the message.

  • Great video! I may have to subscribe I think.

  • I dont get it

  • How do you do it?

    It's beautiful

  • Oo I'm Korean what do you know so far

  • Who want to learn Japanese and Chinese with me?

  • @lilylessons Random... Lol. but I'm learning Korean and Japanese. :)

  • FREAKING AWESOME!

  • fucking cool !!!!! thats nice

  • Almost as good as Salad Fingers.

  • Very good. Alot of work and effort was put into the video. Totally original. Cheers. :)

  • The music is totally awesome :P

  • Narcissus, is that you?

  • dude, I spend the last 2 days trying to find this video again. i first watched it almost 3 years ago, I was afraid it had been pulled off. this is one of the greatest pieces of art on youtube.

  • 1,120 people disliked this because they wouldn't even have an idea about how to go about making something on their own.

  • Rockin'

  • i don't get it...

  • This is my favorite YouTube video!

  • too abstract

  • good concept

  • Wow. Great voice for this video too! I'm not going to give my interpretation because it's neat for each person to see it in their own way. Thanks for the vid.

  • dark and poetic. I like it! 8D

  • you made it at the oc ir you drawed it on the paper?

  • Nice!

  • A message about finding oneself through nature after losing oneself through corporate culture? Interesting video. Found this through the Tool song of the same name.

  • good vid man, liked it

  • What a good story! Love it!!

  • good job =D 

  • I saw this video during a very stressful time in my life. The haunting music, the hypnotic narration and the surreal animations really stick with me. It is a good video regardless of its intended meaning. I believe it is meant to be about a man who was environmentally conscious in his youth, but decided to go work in a factory. I think 8 years later he's reflecting on his life and he realizes that he betrayed his ideals. He then goes to the woods to reconcile his practical and idealistic halves.

  • good story, but needs better animation.

  • Excellent !!

  • Really great script. What a gem.

  • Creatively cool!

  • wow

  • Tool - true music that touches the soul !

  • this is kindof like fight club

  • Positive: The animation is very impressive and the animated guy in it was very adorble.

    Negative: Somehow, I got your message but as you know, some people doesn't have a wide range of understanding so I suggest, you create another one that you are sure most people would understand.

    -OwnArtVideoReviewer

  • Wow...

  • i dont get it. can someone tell me whats the message?

  • At 2:19 you can hear a quiet voice saying "I know who you are" Kinda creepy.

  • thought this was a song from mulan, but great vid!

    type in "manting chan - reflection" you think Mulan is REAL! lol

  • @anniey605

    i thought so that it was mulan :D

  • nice !!! ^_^

  • this is awesome!!!!

  • awesome atmosphere.

  • max payne atmosphere

  • So much detail and thought put into this story, it could mean something different to everyone. Brilliant.

  • very good...

    yeah

  • Dynamic and creative! Nice closure! Decent score on the guitar!

    Peace

    Von

  • a fine effort

    thanks

  • Brillant

  • Wow,.....this video is so awsome,never fails to make me cry a little LOL

  • hmmm... what does it mean? I can usually get a since of the point behind a video, but I don't understand this one.

  • It's about life's journey to find one's true self.

    That's the short interpretation.

  • Really excellent video. Very creepy. At first I wasn't sure if I'd take it seriously, what with the stick figures, but you really got my attention and held it. I love the style.

  • wow very Edgar Alan Poe'ish great job!

  • today is the anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe's death.

  • wow! really?

  • @Darius12235 not really

  • wow. O.O

  • felipemontenegro1985 i´m from chile, and yes, i like to see spanish videos, or without voices, but this is not the case.

    but the video is amazing, and the english is one universal lenguage

  • Amazing; beautiful and creepy. One of the best videos on youtube! Favorited. :)

  • um, i see.

  • That was brilliant man, beautiful story. Great imagery. In my favourites already

  • great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • awesome

  • Pliss, one video in spanish!

  • snarff?????

  • Eerie, yet hauntingly beautiful at the same time.

  • B.E.A.UTIFULL. thats some quality poetry dude.

  • wow... i don't know what to say. this is... actually i don't get the point, but it really doesn't matter. this is kinda spooky. but this goes now straight to my favs. :)

  • quality work

  • really cool stuff

  • deap shit ... good music

  • what kind of poetry is this?

  • I Like this video! Please look at mine?

  • 0.0 ........ ummm-- wow-- no offense but I felt like I would have to take a few shrooms to understand this. I'm a big fan of poetry and all, but yikes! Bravo for all the effort you put into it though.

  • i saw this movie when the views was under 1000 and look now... over one million views... I am not supprised It's totaly understandable... Its awesome!! 5 Stars ofc!

  • wierd. But very well put together

  • Wonderful, really wonderful.

  • in a way it made sense but kinda not?? um it rememinded me of the animation salad fingers a bit, but good job :)

  • I know, my english is not so good, can me irgendwer tell me worum es in der geschichte geht?

  • In what language should I tell you in order to make it possible for you to understand?

    Auf welche Sprache soll ich denn errzählen damit du verstanden hast?)

    на каком языке то рассказать?))

  • wennßs geht in deutsch.

  • das ist fast unmöglich)) Aber ich versuche) Vor 8 Jaren hat er seinen Bruder verliert, er hat ihn irgentwo im Walt bleiben lassen. Die Werke wuchsen wie Bäume und sie fanden einen schwarzen Strom, der lief wie das Quecksilber. Jetzt sah er sein Foto in der Zeitnung. Die Uhr ist 8 abgelaufen das war die Lieblingszahl des Bruders, und er fuhr in den Wald und traf ihn)

    Oder wolltest du die Bedeutung erfahren?

  • "It was not until November that i found my brother, printed across the back pages of a magazine. The light and the moon were the same acid white, and the familiar tree, stood out, like a tungsten flame. The clock struck eight as i left the factory library. The bike revved with a growl, down the lighted lane, past the factories, into the trees, and there he was, all at once, my brother, exactly where i had left him eight years ago, pale amidst the canopy of falling leaves and rain.

  • Eight years ago the factories grew like trees and my brother and i found the black stream, dodging through the woods like mercury.

  • My brother? Too bad you couldn't stay, i never meant to leave you, in the woods like that...

  • What did you see when you went down to the river alone? I know who you are. It was written in the trees and scrawled across the pages of the magazine. My brother's favorite number was always eight, symmetrical and clean. you were always my favorite reflection."

  • That was an amazing film . Very thought provoking and moody . Such a vastly different work than any i have seen in a long time .

  • Great, very interesting video and great music, that perfectly creates the mood!

  • very gud ! 5/5

  • reflections, that's it. have you ever thought about reflection this is what stories looks like when you base them on reflections.

  • perfect

  • If you pause it at exactly the right moment at 0:38, the second lightning flash, you something REALLY creepy.

    And I do think there's a lot of symbolism here, at the risk of sounding like just about everybody else. You just have to take it bit by bit and think each part through. That's probably why it's also kind of short. At any rate, I think it's also well-made in the artistic apartment. If nothing else, it has an aesthetic appeal.

  • i can understand that its not his brother but himself but can u please tell me what this whole video is about?

  • spooky

  • i finally figured it out! Sorry if i ruin this for some people, but its true. The whole time, he's not talking about his brother that he left in the forest eight years ago, who he's talking about is literally his reflection. Notice he only mentions his brother when it's in context with the black river. In the long silence, it shows him looking at himself, and for a second, it flashes to reality, he's just looking in the river. And how it ties in with 8? 8 is simetrical and clean like areflection

  • well obviously!!! but i love this its awsum!!!

  • i understand that its not his brother but himself but what is the whole meaning of this video?

  • I think the meaning of it is open to many different intrepretations, but I think it symbolizes how things like industry and factories are polluting the world and affecting people's lives in horrible ways. The number 8, of course, is the whole "reflection" part with it's symmetry. I think there never was a brother, but he went down to the black stream and fell in it and got poisoned. After that, I'm not so sure.

    Hope I cleared it up a bit.

  • u did. thank u very much

  • You're welcome. :)

  • @lulcupter The film was called Reflection.

  • wot is the music when he is riding through the forest and past the factories? please tell me!!!! PLEASE REPLY! amazing vid!

  • I created the music myself, I'm glad you liked it!

  • liked it! its amazing! especially when he is riding past the factories and the woods, the music then is rly rly good! 10/10. amazing

  • u know i saw this over a year ago and i still return to watch it thats how good i think it is :P man im still not lien i saw it in a magazine :P a popular science one a few years ago or so mabe last year good job i still love it.

  • omg i saw this a long time ago too and then today it just came to my memory and i was like o i have too see it! IT WAS SOO GOOD! i just remember liking it a lot and now i know why lol

  • DUDE! me too!

  • gud

  • amazing!!

  • but the internet just came out in the 90's

  • no it didn't. The internet was born in the 50's and grew from there, being used by university students as early as the 60's.

    It simply didn't become "big" until the 90's when people realized they could share porn with their friends using the internet. Then it became HUGE.

  • im forgetting what i said to your comment from earlier, but seeing your information about the internet im sure you prooved me wrong in some sort of way. refresh my memory please?

  • You said that the internet came out in the 90's and I got on my soap box and told you about the history of the internet - I realize in hindsight that I probably came off as a douchebag :(

    Hopefully not

  • very good, artistic.

  • "I know who you are"

  • ahaa. what?

    i'm scared.

  • NEATO! I dug it.

  • I tend to look at it with more of a face value. Things like the spider was just used as a means to tranistion from one scene to the next. The choice of the number 8, as well as its repetition, is arbitrary. Most the details are arbitrary, selected for the sole purpose of spurring conversation, rather than having an obvious meaning in itself. Annoying really. And pretentious. I like the art style though. Reminds me of Ivan Bilibin.

  • Pretentious? Because you don't get and/or are unable to come up with your own interpretation it means that the details were just added for the hell of it? This short film makes complete sense to me as well as most other people who have viewed it. Even the people who don't understand the whole thing have at least a vague understanding of it.

    Think "symbolism" instead of "arbitrary". This isn't Die Hard. You actually have to think about the details here.

  • I did make my own interpretation; he had thrown together a load of random stuff together and deliberately refused to make his objective clear. That suggests to me that he is being pretentious--proud with himself that he had made this word puzzle for us. Symbolism is not the pinnacle of art; for all I know and care, he just throws in things like factories and the number 8 for the hell of it. There! My interpretation is as valid (and likely) as yours.

  • That's not an interpretation. That's succumbing to laziness.

    I'm not saying you have to like it. It's perfectly fine if you don't. What I'm saying is that you shouldn't bash something just because you don't understand it. You sound like someone who needs the story spoon-fed to them.

  • It wasn't a lazy conclusion. I gave it a good seven seconds thought before deciding the film lacked any redeeming quality. I could just accuse you of being gullible. How do you know this guy isn't pulling your leg? If I made a video full of esoteric nonsense, I'm sure there would be plenty of geniuses like your self, ready to lap up the "fruitful symbolism", so what is to say it hasn't happened this time?

  • hahaha! you know nothing of film. It took me a couple times to watch it before I got it. If someone has nothing to say then it would come off as jibberish even after careful thought. I gave this short careful thought and analyzed the clues which pointed at the only reasonable conclusion. Again - sorry it wasn't spoon-fed to you.

  • Only one reasonable conclusion, my arse. I analysed the clues as well. The clues led me to believe that I might as well take the story on face value, for all its ambiguity. Does it have to have a deep meaning? It isn't a question of me having to be fed the answers; it is a question of why he bothered to make this film so cryptic at all. What purpose does it serve? I'm not saying it has to be Die Hard, but I think he made it excessively illusive. Too many damn similes in this film also.

  • As a filmmaker I can tell you that som of us like to make films cryptic because that's the kind of films we like. We like them because they make us think. We make them to get our audiences involved.

  • As an audience member I can tell you that there is a certain limit as to how cryptic a story can be before loosing its immersive appeal. This one crosses the line and appeals only to the pseudo-intellectuals; The "alternative" crowd who arrogantly scoff when other people don't "get it" like they do.

  • No, it is for anyone who likes figuring things out.

    People don't scoff at other people for not getting it. I'm simply scoffing at you for stating your opinion as though it's fact.

  • "I tend to look at it with more of a face value. " These was the words I used, and I assumed people would naturally think I was just giving my opinion, rather than trying to state it as fact. I then made it even more clear later when decribing what I said as an "interpretation" and a "conclusion".

  • You never stated an interpretation. You stated a conclusion yes. However saying that something means nothing is not interpreting it. It is discarding it.

  • will you two quit bitchin' about he cool vid ur filtering the commenting area

  • First off - mind your own business.

    Secondly - look at how old our comments are.

  • I think the point of reflection was because of the fact that he's talking as if it were another person, when in fact it was him all along. A reflection is like another person; this is further justified by the noting of number 8 being symmetrical. What are mirrors showing? A symmetrical portrait of you (as long as they arent funny mirrors anyways). I don't get the symbolism of the black river or the random spider popping out of the head though; all I can think of is death?

  • maybe the spider is #8-associated with cycles, balance, and spiders. the factories aren't part of any natural cycle, and the black stream is polluted water. so when he becomes a factory worker i'm guessing, he leaves behind his own conscience of what it means-and 8 years later, as the clock struck 8, he's called back to it. i'm guessing the spider eating him-and the factories looking like spiders when they pop up-means that now the cycle's trying to balance itself, by removing some things...

  • I had a conversation with a friend about this and came to a conclusion about the spider and the black water. We believe that the spider and the black water symbolizes the pollution; his reflection being him in the past. He left a part of himself in the past, when he became a factory worker; someone who liked nature. But working for a factory which pollutes contradict his love for it.

  • pretty much what i thought. what interests me is that the river grabs him, and the scene where the spider pops out of his head - like a parasite eating him, before he becomes part of the tree. the line "too bad you couldn't stay - I never meant to leave you in the woods like that" is also interesting, because the first half says the figure he's talking to left - the second, that he was left behind. so maybe it wasn't so much he walked away from his past self as he found it impossible to keep it

  • symbolism here people symbolism......its obvious that its polluting but what does that mean...how could a factory pollute his soul......what does a factory do to an american society...symbolism people...try it

  • heres some food for thought for everyone trying to figure this out still.....perhaps there arent two people...maybe theres just one

  • that was one of my first thoughts - that he meant his past self.

  • lol thats what i thought too, I noticed the end where the two became one.

  • I believe this is about a boy who lost his brother. His brothers favorite number was 8 and 8 sideways means eternity, and maybe that meant they would be together, forever. So the boy that died became part of the forest. I'm not sure about the black river being polluted or if it means something else, but I am not ruling it out either.

  • i dont really get it....but i like it

  • Im guessing that 8 years ago the brother went into the woods and went to the river alone. He fell and drowned, and when he's almost dead (lying on the ground) the guy next to him is (Death?) and he became part of the forest. The bugs and the plants all became a part of him, hence the weird image of his head. The brother's reflection was always in a symmetrical world, like 8's, the goggles, bike, tree... He found him and then they came together as one.

  • He didn't fall he killed himself.

  • yes..the brother could be his twin..

    I remember someone else's comment said that it was his reflection..and the factories polluted the river, so he couldn't see his reflection anymore.

    but yours' is making more sense to me, now.

  • wow all that arguing over a simple video. xD typical youtube. But as for the video i thought it was pretty kool :D

  • It's okay. They were all out of intellect and sense-making, so they made an idiotic short-film and called it artistic expression. Then everyone was able to turn the old thinker of and love it to pieces for it's nothingness.

  • Haha, brutal. I like that line, though "love it to pieces for its nothingness." Interesting.

  • And you're an inimitable insult genius.

  • the number eight, perfect and clean... nice.

  • oh my god this was amazing.

  • look at 0:38, creepy, also, i believe it's about him dying in the river that was poluted from the factories, and when he died he became a tree, and maybe his soul was searching for his body, idk

  • I absolutely love this animation. But I find the speech very difficult to hear against the music. Any chance of cranking down the music a notch?

  • ummm

    i dont quite fully understand.

  • Just because you aren't smart enough to figure this out, AnomalousVikingNinja, doesn't mean that there isn't a meaning to it.... I completely get what this short is about, or rather, I have an interpretation.... sorry the story wasn't spoon fed to you, but you have to actually THINK about the film.

  • Oh Ryan the film-director. Come to a deeper realization of your own silliness, and take not yourself so seriously.

    I did not mean to encroach upon your self-consciousness with my unfair critical-thinking skills: but I'm glad I did! I delight in your defensism. Your oversensitivity intrigues me.

    Is it that you connect with this film? Does its empty muteness call out into the dark void that is your soul? Do you fear concrete thought?

  • I simply can't stand stupid people who like to pass themselves off as intelligent and criticize things they don't understand.

    It's perfectly fine if you don't like it. There's no such thing as a film that every single person likes. It's even cool to voice your constructive opinion.

    But when you state your opinion as fact just because you don't get it ---- that's NOT ok.

    Sorry that I pointed out your stupidity. Looking back... it was not necessary as you prove it yourself without help.

  • Because my taste doesn't mirror your own means I have poor taste? You, sir, have no talent for intellectual conversation as you yourself cannot see past your own nose.