If I Am Your Mirror
Animated film by Garrett DeHart

Even though I don’t see it when I look out my window, I live in a country at war. For the past decade, kids from my neighborhood have joined the US military – to get a degree, a “good” job, a paycheck, to fight for a false ideal – and they come back with war in their minds and hearts. I can’t see the violence and trauma in their souls, nor can I see the indelible images in their brains; they aren’t things I even want to imagine. The fear, the smells of burning flesh and blood, the ear-crushing booms of bombs and bullets are all real life horror and nightmare. If I Am Your Mirror captures this in breathtaking painted animation; director and animator Garrett DeHart was inspired by Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart and romantic painting, and sets a scene of mass murder and revenge that has left me unsettled and sad, but at the same time blown away by the beauty of his film. The protagonist is played by Larry Holdman (Batman Begins, Memento), whom the film is also in memory of, and his character invites us into the dark and paranoid worldview of a veteran of the Civil War. His world is painted black after witnessing so much murder and mayhem, some at his own hands, and he is unable to cope with the world around him. At times we are in his mind, at others we are watching him from the outside, but the lines are blurred and leave the viewer with a feeling of sickness at the cruelty of human beings. This film may mean different things to different people, but to me it is a reminder of why war is to be abhorred and not exalted, and it will keep me speaking out against the bullshit and lies that push my neighbors into its clutches, only to come back broken and scarred. Check out If I Am Your Mirror below and more information about the film and DeHart after the jump.

“If I Am Your Mirror”; An 18 minute short animated film inspired by romantic painting and Edgar Allan Poe. In a post-Civil War jail, a psychologically scarred veteran (Larry Holden of Batman Begins, Memento), awaits his death by hanging at dawn. Mourning the death of his wife and struggling with post-traumatic nightmares, he seeks revenge on the mysterious street preacher with an evil eye. Trapped between madness and a reality that is insane, he recollects what led him to the gallows.

“If I Am Your Mirror” is Garrett DeHart’s graduate thesis film. He shot the actors in a chromakey studio and developed an animation technique to simulate an animated oil painting. He did all the post production himself over a two year period. He has forgone the festival circuit to release the film for free online in the hopes of getting out to as large an audience as possible, and to develop working professional relationships. The film was produced with a budget under $5000.

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Garrett DeHart
garrett@garrettdehart.com
Producer, Director “If I Am Your Mirror”