I kind of wonder what Ors Barczy was thinking of when creating Hey Deer!. It’s cute without a doubt, but it’s also kind of confusing at first. I think around the second time I finally understood just what was happening. Initially you might that think that from the viewpoint, someone is getting ready to dump a big load of snowballs on this poor deer as he’s shoveling out his front walk. When the scene turns green for some inexplicable reason though you find yourself just watching for a moment as the deer goes back inside, pours himself some hot cocoa, and then after hearing a strange noise outside proceeds to check a few things and then head to bed.
As he lays sleeping a strange thing occurs. From the window you can see as his house seems to lean one way, then another, and then back and forth several times. Dishes fall out of the cupboards, books fall off the shelves, and so on and so forth. When he wakes up the next morning he gets up and puts everything back to rights. From the look he gives you can tell he’s done this more than once and has expected it. After everything is put away he goes outside to shovel his walk again, as all the snow has shifted to cover it again. He goes back in when the green glow comes, performs his same old rituals, and then goes to sleep. The next day and the next are like this as well, but one day he wakes up and finds that his shovel, which he always hangs in its own spot, is gone.
The deer looks for the shovel but upon not finding it decides to shovel out the walk with his hands. By the time he has it even close to done however he’s so tired that he simply flops onto his back on the walk, looking up. It’s around that time that the green glow comes, and the strange, almost childish chuckling can be heard. As we see from the deer’s point of view a glass dome appears in the sky, through which we can see a little girl cross over, her form huge and her face alight with joy as she grabs something and the entire scene begins to shake once again.
The deer, too tired to move, is taken up with the motion and falls towards the domed surface, finally able to be seen by the little girl as he marvels at the sight of her. It’s then that the camera cuts away to a shot of a little girl holding a snow globe and giggling as she looks at the deer. She seems overjoyed to see him, and in a scene just after the credits we see her placing several kernels of popcorn near the globe. Inside we get to see that the deer is now enjoying a big box of popcorn and is quite content.
This was a very cute and heartwarming short film, no wonder it won awards.
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