I found this short film to be extremely thought provoking about what its real meaning is. For example the ending which shows the death of 'God', combined with the title suggests the value that 'machinery will kill religion' (figuratively speaking of course), however the fact that the machinery is built and powered by a young boy could show that the youth of today will 'kill religion'. However I also found that having watched the film a few times, I began to notice more and more subtle aspects to the film. Such as the fact that if you look at Delmer's machine upside down it actually looks rather like a face, and the fact that the letters NY - as in New York City - are featured pegged to the outside of the machine. Whether these aspects are intentional or not is entirely questionable, however I'm sure that there would be some kind of method to the making of the machine itself when the film was made and this would include a deeper meaning.
The style of the film is very appealing and childish, it uses a colour palette that consists of bright colours. It is made even more childish by Delmer being dressed in a Bob the Builder style with the toy hard cap and dungarees. This childish, playful style creates an ironic situation when we as an audience realise that he has killed God, the style suggests innocence, when in fact he has done something very awful.
The audience is made to like Delmer. From 0:30 to 1:00 the film is made up of quick cuts of shots of Delmer "constructing" his machine, however none of the things he does could really help build the machine, for example he is sawing with a toy plastic saw and tapping randomly on a toy cashier machine. It makes the audience wonder how on earth he built the machine and pushes the preferred reading to the audience that Delmer is just an innocent young boy. Probably the funniest and most touching scene is Delmer eating his lunch, especially as he starts by retrieving his soft toy - a bear wearing a hard cap too. Delmer eating his lunch is just made up of one shot filmed handheld, where Delmer just chews away at his sandwich and finishes by flicking something off of his lunch. The shot is timed in the middle of the film and serves as a break between the quick cuts where the film - and Delmer - pauses for a second.
The ending of the film however is what makes it so interesting, and mildly controversial. Once Delmer fires the machine we see a low angle shot looking up at the machine as if from Delmer's point of view, then we see two different shots that show Delmer looking up at whatever he has just shot out of his contraption. These shots hold for an unusually long wait of at least ten seconds before we see a splat of blood and Delmer's shocked expression. The camera then tracks across to show the face of 'dead God' and Delmer, still in shock, runs out of the frame. In the credits the character I have called God is credited as "Him", however at the end of the credits we see copyrighted the "God Killing Machine". Overall I loved the quirkiness of this film and that through all its innocence, it is actually quite dark. However, I also thought the best part of the short was that it had such a deeper meaning than one would originally think having just seen it, and that the more you watched it the more layers you found.
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