Meta Quest: Perennials is one of the most beautiful VR films to date
Perennials is a visually powerful VR film and an excellent example of the emerging art of VR animation.
With the new VR app Theater Elsewhere, Meta has unearthed a treasure trove of VR experiences and made them more discoverable to a wider VR audience.
I was browsing through some of the 2,400 entries over the weekend and came across Perennials, a wonderful VR film produced by Meta, which came out last year but which I had never heard of before.
Even if you're not into emotional family stories, you'll appreciate the craft and talent that went into making Perennials. I promise.
A story that spans three generations
Meta describes the story as follows:
"After the death of his estranged father, Elias returns to his family's abandoned vacation home to take stock of what's left behind. Torn between grief, resentment, and nostalgia, and wholly unwilling to confront any of those emotions, Elias wants nothing more than to be done with the place. His little niece, Emi, who's accompanying him, has designs of her own, a hunger for adventure, and a task she's determined to carry out."
In the course of the 17-minute VR film, flashbacks introduce us to Elias' childhood and early adolescence, the family summers at the house, and his difficult father-son relationship. The partly nostalgic, party-traumatic past that Elias is confronted with in the summer house meets the present in the form of his little niece Emi. She makes Elias open up and sets a development in motion.
Beautifully crafted visuals
The VR film's greatest strength is its artistic style, which bears the signature of young Swiss artist Zoe Roellin. Like the other works in Meta's VR app, Perennials was hand-drawn and animated in virtual reality.
The VR film tells a moving story, but it is the visual artistry that makes Perennials an unforgettable experience: the beguilingly beautifully drawn environments, scenes, and characters that we share up close, intimately, as if we were all part of it. Perennials makes a powerful case for the emergence of VR animation as an art form in its own right.
You can watch Perennials in the VR app Theater Elsewhere, which you can download from the Horizon Store.
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