"Maestro" is an animated short film from 10 years ago. It's actually a Hungarian production by writer and director Géza M. Tóth. But don't worry, there is no spoken language in here, so you don't need to be able to understand Hungarian. Anyway, it's pretty short, roughly 4.5 minutes and shows us how a bird, apparently an opera singer, prepares for his great moment on stage. All in all, I was not too impressed by this film here, with the exception of two moments. The first would be when his voice slowly transforms from tough to listen to into wonderful to listen to. The second is the ending. I won't go anymore into detail here, but I have to say it caught me completely by surprise and made me laugh. All in all, I guess I agree with the Oscar nomination because the animation here is fine as well. I even would have preferred it was the winner over the Danish entry. It's also better than the "Ice Age" short film and maybe only slightly inferior to the Pixar entry that year. Still, easily my number one choice is "The Little Match Girl", which was such a wonderful experience and, almost 10 years later, still makes me sad that it did not win. Back to "Maestro", I recommend it and I hope we get a full feature movie from the director at some point, if he manages to make it work. I am not entirely sure if he has it inside him looking at how short this one here is and how strongly it relies on the final twist, but why not give it a go, Mr. Tóth?
Review of Maestro
