What would happen if a talented director unleashed his imagination without fear of restrictions from movie studios? Quite often the greatest imaginations of our time are not allowed to show us their full visions. When we view a movie on screen most of the time we are watching the remains of a battlefield after a war between creativity, greed, and politics.

Heart String Marionette is different. Creator M Dot Strange’s full intent has remained intact and survived the final cut.  It lives up to his own standard of “NEW STORIES… NEW PER[S]PECTIVES…. NEW VOICES… WHO DON’T BOW TO THE SAME MASTERS and DO NOT PERPETUATE THEIR BULL****!“.

Heart String Marionette is elegantly disturbing and full of grace. The latest film from Strange is a radical change from his first release, We Are The Strange. While We Are The Strange is a cyberpunk tour of madness, Heart String Marionette is a feast for the darkest depths of the soul. Don’t be fooled by the IMDB description for the movie:

A tale about a kid, a samurai mime, and a stripper who all try to defeat a warlord and an evil clown who have successfully turned a countryside into a never ending nightmare filled with horrible monsters.

The above will have you thinking that you are about to watch an animated B-movie. Heart String Marionette is anything but a B-movie! This is Nightmare Before Christmas having a hot and heavy session with Ninja Scroll. This is Enter The Dragon dancing a dangerous tango with Mirror Mask in an acid rain storm of Pan’s Labyrinth.  It is about defining sense in a senseless world, about a father and son, about a goddess of sorrow forged into a blade and a hilt, about hand crafted demons made from the fragments of people’s former selves.

The soundtrack for Heart String Marionette is quite an impressive effort from the composer Endika. Full of delicate, layered and shadowy melodies, we can’t imagine what Endika channeled while creating it but we suspect he must be on the same frequency as Strange. With their forces combined the duo have raised the standard for indie audio/visual storytellers to heights never seen before.

Heart String Marionette is an animated masterpiece. It took roughly 5 years for the movie to be made. It was well worth the wait.

Here is the website for the film: www.youwilldieinside.com. Sure you could watch the free versions online but why not pay the $5.00 and support M Dot Strange so he can continue to make more strange movies and get them out into the world in less than 5 years.

Have you watched Heart String Marionette? What was your favorite moment?