Pear Cider and Cigarettes is a 2016 animated short film (32 minutes) by Robert Valley.
It is the true story of Valley's troubled friendship with his friend Techno Stypes. Techno and Robert meet in school. Robert is amazed by his friend, who is popular and athletic and fun. But as time passes Techno's hell-raising ways get more and more self-destructive. At 17, he crashes a car and nearly dies; he's left with a limp and slurred speech. Years roll by and Techno keeps partying, drinking, and doing drugs, and hanging out with a succession of sleazeballs and lowlifes. His alcohol abuse leaves him with a ruined liver. Needing a transplant and unable to get one in Canada because he won't stop drinking, Techno goes to China to buy a liver. When things get messy in China, Techno's family gets Robert to go help his friend.
The whole animated short was done in Photoshop.
Tropes:
- The Ace: Techno in high school. He could throw a ball further than anyone else, he was the fastest kid in school, he was a champion skateboarder. Robert remembers that "He could always pull it off."
- The Alcoholic: Techno abuses a lot of substances but apparently alcohol was the worst. He is refused a liver transplant in Canada because he won't stop drinking. Even after he flies to China to get a new liver, he keeps drinking in his hospital room. One of Robert's jobs in Guangzhou is to continually confiscate the bottles of liquor in Techno's room.
- Bathos: The sobering conclusion of Robert and Techno's family scattering Techno's ashes ends with a gust of wind blowing the ashes into a group a hundred yards away from the cliffside. Techno's father can't help but wryly comment that Techno can't stop causing trouble even after death.
- Biopic: Valley's brutally honest but still affectionate portrait of his good friend Techno and Techno's short, self-destructive life.
- Call-Back: Part of Techno's on-the-edge lifestyle involves diving off a startlingly high cliff. At the end, Techno's family scatters his ashes off that same cliff.
- The Cat Came Back: As Techno waits for his liver in China, a cat keeps appearing in his hospital room. Robert keeps taking the cat out of the hospital room and depositing it in the courtyard in the back, only for the cat to reappear in the hospital room. Once he sees a hand poking through the door and returning the cat.
- Childhood Friends: Robert and Techno, friends from their school days, even if mild-mannered Robert is sometimes scared by Techno's hell-raising ways.
- Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: As Robert Valley tells the story, Techno was popular and cool and generally The Ace in school, while Robert wasn't on any teams or in any clubs and generally did nothing but draw.
- Dead Man Writing: Starts with Robert receiving a hand-delivered card from Techno, saying "If you are reading this, that means I am dead." Techno has died after his body rejected the new liver.
- Drunken Montage: A montage shows Techno in a series of settings, always with a bottle of liquor attached to his mouth, to demonstrate how his drinking got out of control.
- Feet-First Introduction: Jennifer, Techno's first wife, is introduced by high heels marching through a doorway. She's a bad influence who encourages all of Techno's worst impulses.
- Hope Spot: After a lot of setbacks, Robert manages to get Techno back to Canada seemingly in one piece. Then he gets a call that Techno's body rejected the liver transplant, and Techno dies shortly afterwards.
- How We Got Here: Starts with Robert getting the Dead Man Writing Christmas card from Techno, then skips back to Robert flying off to China to look after Techno, then skips even further back to tell Techno's story from when he and Robert first met in school.
- Narrator: Robert Valley narrates the whole short.
- P.O.V. Shot: Nearly the entire film is shown through Robert's eyes. The most we see of him, aside from some flashback of his childhood, are his hands.
- Splash of Color: All the scenes with Robert and Techno in China are done mostly in black and white, except for Techno himself, who has yellow skin to demonstrate his jaundice as his liver fails. When Techno finally gets his new liver, the yellow color fades out as he turns as monochrome as the rest of the image.
- Staggered Zoom: A staggered zoom onto a Bandage Mummy Techno, as he lies in the hospital after suffering a terrible car accident at the age of 17.
- Time-Passes Montage: A montage of time passing in China as Techno waits for his new liver: Robert pours out the liquor Techno has hidden, Robert throws out the cat, and they watch Seinfeld, over and over again.
- The Unreveal: Who kept putting that cat back in Techno's room?
- Visual Pun: When Robert says that Techno looked "sketchy", the linework on the animation becomes rougher.
