Some dreams survive.
2014-01-17
N/A
80 min
Suffering because of his father's departure to the big city, a boy leaves his village and discovers a fantastic world dominated by bug-engines and strange beings. An unusual animation with various artistic techniques that portrays the issues of the modern world through the eyes of a child.
We live gloriously, but we won't let the world.
The film was nominated at the 88th American Academy Awards for best animated feature and lost to 'Inside Out', but won one at Annie Awards out of three nominees. Originally from Brasil, a 80 minutes long, I mean short film, excluding the opening and end credits which makes it even shorter. The tale was told with the beautiful visuals and music, without any dialogues to reach the audience making no complication. Because it was not just an entertainer, but a message bearer.
The animation type was simple, yet awesome. All the drawings were done by the director himself. Totally colourful crayons sketches. It was supposed to be a documentary, but later became a feature film. The story about a boy who lives with his parents in the rural growing up loving all the wonders of the nature. He observes the changing world as his father bids a goodbye to him to look for a better job in the city, but never returned. So the curious little kid who loves his father very much takes us an adventure when industrial revolution taking place. The rest of the film tells whether he finds what he's looking for.
There were many animations got released in the same year, but this film got the Oscars nod because of the strong message. Especially in the present world this kind of film brings more awareness to the people. It focused the theme man destroying the beautiful world for the profit and dumping the waste everywhere. I am sure you might have seen several documentary films on this topic, but this one was different which was somewhat close to 'Earth 2100'. Although it talks about the past and present than the distant future.
The pollution was one of the biggest concerns today and nobody cares to curb it. The industrial revolution is not defining our progressive, but threatening to our future generation. Besides the poors are directly affected by the loss of the employment. The human development in on the right direction, but the path we have chosen was not. So by now you know it is not for just the kids. The film offers a lot for adults to learn from it than the children. But surely a film to them both watch together and have a good time.
At one point, for a quick, a few real clips were shown to let us know what the real world looks like after such thing happened as it was shown in the film. I loved the comparison between the city and the rural, from lifestyle, fading culture to everything. The real heartbreaking scene is when the boy revisits his old place to learn it is destroyed. Surely we all have similar kind of experience in our life about the place we had admired some time ago is now completely ruined.
It might have not won the Oscar or not popular as the one won, but definitely not ignorable film. All the other four nominees stood behind creativity and entertainment, but this one was with dual intention and it succeeded. It wins our heart more than any prestigious awards in the world, yet I agree the awards leads to the wider recognisation. So I urge everybody to watch it sooner or later, but never to miss it. It is not your Disney, Pixer or Ghibli films, but surely you would enjoy it. I don't know the director, but I think if he resumes with the same intensity for the future projects, he would definitely become the South American Tomm Moore with his unique animation and storytelling.
8/10
Yes, this film is, though you may not suspect it at first, about our broken relationship with nature. The city is the bad place, technology is bad, and nature is good and pure. And you can be sure that this message is not handled with any subtlety - at all.
But, I loved this film. And not just because of its magnificent images or because of its brilliantly cute character design.
The message of the film may be an old one and one we have heard many times before. But the way it is shown is unique and utterly impressive. I sat in the cinema today and cried, which I did not do for a very long time. Yes, it is very emotional and extremely passionate, and also relentlessly honest. I was ashamed and deeply sad when I left the theater. And because of its honesty I love it. And because there is truth in this message, there is no way around it. We hurt and destroy our world. And how can we bear seeing this cute boy watching all these grown-ups acting like this, destroying this wonderful, wonderful nature? We can't. And there is a reason why we can't. I think it is because we know that it is wrong.
Well, you'll have to experience it for yourself. Please do. I can promise you that you have never seen anything like it before.
