Primitive Times

Work, work, nothing but work. It seems natural to slave away for wages and be exploited. Satisfaction and health tend to fall by the wayside. Did individuals in prehistoric and ancient times have similar problems to people in modern times? We asked five representatives of ancient Egypt, the Stone Age and primitive peoples. Let's see what their answers were. “In his animated short film, Hao Yu works with a well-known but always very effective stylistic device: the contrast between the sound and visual levels, which creates an ironic alienation effect. On the sound level, he has strung together fragments of interviews with Chinese wage laborers, in which they talk about the extreme working conditions under which it is impossible for them to lead a full and healthy life. On the visual level, we see people living in ancient and prehistoric times, lip-synching the words of their modern, real-life “doppelgangers”. [...] [Hao Yu] has succeeded in making an original, comical and humanistic film about the question of whether humanity does not have to struggle today just as it did in prehistoric times.” (FBW jury statement: “Particularly valuable”)