Das Rad / Rocks | 8min | Directors Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel | 2001 | Germany | German with English subtitles | NTSC

Apparently, rocks are having conversations all around us, but they talk very, very slowly. Das Rad is, at times, quite funny (Hew, the larger of the two rocks, spends several millenia dealing with an algae “rash”), but the most impressive thing about this 9-minute short (aside form the animation, which is phenomenal) is the way it handles the passage of time. A moment to Hew and Kew equates to dozens, if not hundreds, of years in the earth’s evolutionary process. Things move so quickly, in fact, that the progress they witness is often a blur. Conversely, on two separate occasions, we spend time with human characters, first a primitive caveman, then a merchant who, while traveling on a dirt path that runs alongside the rocks, breaks one of the wooden wheels on his cart. After changing it, he tosses the damaged wheel aside, leading to what I consider to be the film’s most interesting scene (after finding the broken wheel, Kew realizes man has mastered transportation, but before he can turn and show the evidence to Hew, so much time passes that the wheel turns to dust in his hands).