A marionette stands, dejected, in the falling rain. He bows his head, raises a knife, and cuts his strings- then splashes to the ground, dead. The marionette is the king of Hebalon, and he has just committed suicide in the hope that his son will lead his people toward peace.
Strings is not a fantasy played out by puppets. The fact that the actors are marionettes is vital to the plot, the setting, and the characters. Soldiers kill one another by cutting the string that holds their foe's head. Slaves of war have limbs harvested to replace a vetran's arm or leg, severed from its string in combat. The city gate is just a thin piece of wood that lowers to let welcome travelers in, and need only raise a few feet to block the enemy's strings, and, so, the enemy. The prison is a grid that separates inmates with a lattice, blocking them by their strings from high above their heads. Playing children tangle themselves in each other's strings. The birth of an infant marionette is just something you have to see.
There is no evil puppet master in the film, no unseen god, no hints from above that help or hinder the characters as they struggle. The strings stretch high as the marionettes can see. Above the clouds, where only the audience has eyes, the strings continue upward to infinity. The strings are life and death, freedom and slavery, love and hate. The story would be impossible to tell without the strings. Watch them tangle, watch them fray. Check out Strings.
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