
The Wiseman
1991

1997
Director
Bill Plympton
Runtime
8 minutes
Average Rating
No ratings yetSynopsis
In eight minutes, animator Bill Plympton gives us 24 vignettes: seven are clearly about sex, 10 about violence, and seven others deal with human frailties, particularly the body as it ages. There are three stories of persons with confused priorities (including a guy tying his shoe while parachuting); the world's first phone sex; and a clever, if dangerous, way to find a lost key. Except for the titles of each sketch and a couple of jokes that turn on noise, these are visual trips into the psyche of men, women, God, animals, and Time (the enemy of us all).
Overall Score
Fair
Category Breakdown
LGBTQ+ Representation
The film explores sexual liberation and deconstructs social taboos through its vignette structure. However, it lacks specific narrative agency for queer identities or non-cisnormative expressions.
Gender Representation
By focusing on the psyche of men and women, the film avoids idealized gender roles. It presents gender through somatic vulnerability and the biological realities of aging.
Racial & Ethnic Diversity
The narrative leans toward a homogeneous, anthropocentric view of humanity. It focuses on universal archetypes rather than specific racial or ethnic identities.
Religious & Cultural Diversity
The work prioritizes secularism by framing God and Time as subjects of psychological inquiry. It critiques traditional Western social norms through an embrace of moral relativism.
Disability Representation
The preoccupation with human frailties and the aging body engages with themes of physical limitation. This subverts the idealized physical forms common in mainstream media.
Strengths
Areas for Improvement
AI Analysis
Bill Plympton’s animated short uses a surrealist, episodic structure to explore the raw mechanics of the human condition. By focusing on primal urges and physical decay, the film disrupts traditional cinematic expectations of character development. The work functions as a postmodern critique, favoring existentialist inquiry over structured morality. While it lacks explicit demographic breadth, it succeeds in challenging mainstream social structures through its visceral, non-linear approach.

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