Alike

I saw Alike as part of a festival short animated films and was blown away by it. I'd taken my 2 x kids and thoroughly enjoyed all the films but this one in particular really struck a chord with me. No spoilers - I thought the story was great, it was clever, brilliantly done and really touching as well......I had a wee tear in my eye at the end.

I'd definitely recommend you see this as it's brilliant.

I love the expressions of the little boy. He is full of hope and creativity and is cut off at the pass each time he expresses himself. His father is a worker. He goes in at the same time and comes home at the same time each day. He frowns at his son's childishness in the face of prescriptive learning. He pulls him away from experiences that he sees as trivial. A lot is said in a short period of time here.

Alike is a visually yummy short: smooth, elegant and minimalist, with a great composition and framing, and a selective use of color (a mix of beige, gray and blue toned down hues alternated with dark browns and some bright colors). Alike is not about the visuals, though, is about the message conveyed via an apparently simple story of a father and a son who are anything but alike.

The story is about the way we teach our children, which values and ways of being we force upon them, and how sometimes that is not always good for them. It is a story about not cutting the creative wings of any person as those are innate and cannot be eliminated, just repressed. It is also a story about learning from what makes children happy, as if they are happy we are, too. Alike is mostly, a short about how creativity brights our souls and brings joy to our lives.

No words are used, but the story is well told and are not missed.

Perhaps the thing I liked the least was the facial expression of the child character in the story and some of the intended jokes.

A lovely short film.

Save for a grassy knoll with a brightly coloured tree and a violinist, the life of the father and child here could hardly be more mundane. One goes to work, the other to school and neither see the slightest variation from one day to the next. Gradually, the quite enthusiastic and cheery youngster becomes a little depressed that however it tries to vary it's life, all that ever receives is rejection or even worse, indifference. Perhaps father will spot this and change things? It's actually quite a potent indictment on the routine in which so many of us live our lives and at just how readily any semblance of innovation or enthusiasm can be drummed out of us. It's fairly standard clay animation but I did like the use of colour on the dad to reflect his mood changes, and it's clear all along that he loves the kid very much indeed - a feel good factor that's uplifting when it's reciprocated by a life-affirming great big grin!