Review: Ice Merchants

New Yorker magazine is going from a publication that featured well-made print cartoons to that of an online publication that features animated cartoons. The difference here is instead of the print cartoons of yesteryear that usually dripped with sarcasm, lately the animated shorts that the magazine seems to prefer are of the short variety with no real discerning premise.

Enter Ice Merchants, a tale about a father and son who make a living in the mountains selling ice to the nearby village until one day the snow they used to sell nearly kills them. I suppose maybe a bit of a New Yorker-esque morale can be found in that people going to the same well so many times eventually run out of water, but instead of delivering that morale with the aforementioned sarcasm, a “pray it away” climax brought to us by João Gonzalez is the lucky charm here.

It reminds me of a story that was told to Jerry Seinfeld by way of Jimmy Fallon on an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (streaming now on Netflix). Jimmy Fallon went to a Yankees game with Jack Nicholson. Everyone gets snacks and drinks, Fallon goes for the Cracker Jack. Jack asks Jimmy, “Did you get the prize yet?”. Jimmy eventually gets a sticker of a snake. Jack Nicholson says, “When I was a kid, you used to get tin whistles and such. Now, you get a picture of a fucking snake”.

That’s how this short film made me feel. Like New Yorker is slowly selling out what made the publication’s cartoons entertaining. Now, we’re settling for artsy-fartsy shit that you can get anywhere.