We Are The Strange

We Are The Strange
Dir. M. dot Strange
Released 2007

What a film. I first sat down to watch this movie with three other friends. We sat in a narrow room, using a projector to blow up the film so that it fit on a wall. There were multiple times when I just couldn't take how intense this movie got. So many things blew me away about this movie.
We Are The Strange uses stop motion, computer graphic artwork, and green screens to follow two characters. It’s a style M. dot Strange has dubbed “Str8nime” (pronounced Stray-knee-may) It includes "Strange", "8 bit", and "Anime". One is a living doll, the other is a woman named Bleu who was abused by, I think her boss or boyfriend. Bleu also has some kind of degenerative disease. The plot is the two of them trying to find the perfect ice cream store, while running into various monsters on the way. A third character, Rain, is on a spree to avenge his son. He basically comes in and destroys all the monsters. There’s a final battle between good and evil, Rain dies, but something ends up coming out of the ground to finally defeat the “source of all that is evil in Stopmo City”.
Each scene is full of wild detail. You could look at each frame as if it’s a stand lone photograph. Every pixel seems to have meaning. Dot Strange uses programming language itself as a way to show certain qualities in the characters. Blue’s disease is shown as if there was a sudden glitch in a computer game you were playing.
I have to say though, that I’ve seen this film a few times now. I only truly enjoyed it the first time because I had no idea what I was in for. The conditions were perfect, and I’ve yet been able to recreate the same atmosphere. I recommend using a projector, it needs to be seen huge!

JOSH COHEN