Day & Night is Pixar’s thirteenth short film which surprisingly did not win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, but it should have as it is such a wondrous film and easily Pixar‘s very best to date.
It is about the two characters of Day and Night. Each has a sun or the moon inside them and their emotions turn into actions in themselves. At first, they are jealous and don’t accept each other, but later learn that each of them has its highlights and learn to live together. That is such an awesome story for so many reasons. First of all, it is so incredibly authentic, wildly original and just inventive. Secondly, it is very relevant and is filled with the themes of prejudice and acceptance. But above all, it is incredibly endearing and even funny at times, but mostly just so incredibly smart and powerful. The ending in which they find their similarities, represented by sunrise and sunset, is such a perfectly satisfying conclusion to this wonderful journey.
I have just two very small flaws with it that prevent it from reaching the perfect rating from me. The first is its somewhat annoying sexual angle as sometimes, the thing that annoyed me the most in ‘Knick Knack‘, but thankfully wasn’t as present here. And the second is its speech at the end as it wasn’t that needed and should have been all silent as usual, but it was still solidly done. Yes, even the flaws in this film are so little that they do not hurt it at all.
The character development is excellent. This is the example of a character-driven short film that manages to develop its characters within a short timeframe which is always quite an achievement. Both are so likable and so realistic and their troubles and relationship with each other is so relevant and applicable to the real world.
The animation is just exquisite, so breathtaking. This is one of the best animated works from Pixar, feature-length or short! It is original even in its animation as it mixes CGI in its backgrounds and hand-drawn animation in its characters. And both are great, the CG is polished and beautiful to look at whereas the character design is absolutely terrific, wonderfully simplistic and charming. It works wonders in this film and it is a moving magic to behold. It is also a tightly edited film, it has excellent score and wonderfully realized sound effects. And it has a longer than usual running time for Pixar and with never a rushed or dull moment.
Day & Night is an almost perfect film! It is a magical harmony of sophisticated plot and themes, just breathtaking animation and inherent emotion, realism and cleverness. It is an original, wildly inventive, emotional, relevant, funny and beautiful look at prejudice and acceptance and without a doubt the very best Pixar short ever made and also one of the finest animated short films period.
Day & Night Review
