Ah, L'Amour (1995, ) is Don Hertzfeldt's first 16mm student animated short film, completed at the age of 18 at UC Santa Barbara. Though produced for a beginning film class and never meant to be exhibited, the short had a long life at animation festivals, launching Hertzfeldt into cult status at a young age. In 1998, the short won the Grand Prize Award for "World's Funniest Cartoon" from the HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.
Summary
The cartoon is a satire of toxic men. In it, a pickup artist is violently torn apart by the women he targets, viewed only through his own one-sided, ridiculously misogynistic point of view. Hertzfeldt plays the part of a mentally unwell animator who is losing his grip on his sanity while animating, an idea he'd later revisit in other early "meta" shorts Genre and Rejected.
A few of the women in the film are caricatures of some of Hertzfeldt's real ex-girlfriends.
Music
The soundtrack is acoustic guitar music, performed by Hertzfeldt on a boom box in his dorm room. For the DVD, Hertzfeldt performed an alternate guitar soundtrack as a special feature, approximately 10 years after recording the original. Other special features for Ah L'Amour include Don's original production sketches and notes, as well as a very rare 1993 video short that Don created in high school that is a precursor to the film.