Le garçon et le monde

Boy & The World is a film about a young boy who goes on a journey to find his father in the big city. Along the way, he sees many things, and meets many people. This is the most basic description of what I consider to be one of the best animated films ever made. Let's dig in.

First of all, for a film marketed towards children, it can be quite challenging in different ways. One way is in what it is as a film. The fact that it has absolutely no dialogue and is driven by music and visuals alone is very daring. Another way is in some of the subjects it tackles. This includes things such as the negative influence of industry, the oppression of art and creativity, and the underwhelming reality of adulthood.

I mentioned that the film ditches all talking, instead going for visual and musical storytelling. So does it achieve this goal? Yes. Oh my god yes. Every image that this film throws at you is absolutely gorgeous and full of things to look at. The music is absolutely beautiful, and I'm not lying when I say that I found myself getting chills well an often due to the music. These two factors are what propels the movie and turns it into the great experience it is.

Now let's talk about the overall effect. It was unbelievably effective for me. This is the only film that ever made me weep. I urge any movie fan, or any fan of animated films, to watch this. It is a brilliant experience, and it touches on every emotion I can think of. Happiness, sadness, humor, love, and many more that aren't coming to mind. Go. GO. WATCH IT NOW.

The boy is sadden when his father leaves on the train to find work in the big city. He goes off into the big world in search for his father.

This is a Brazilian animation nominated for an Oscar in 2015. The animation style is colorful stick figures. It has a very unique look. It doubles down by having limited rudimentary dialogue done in gibberish. I do wonder if this would function better as a short, maybe half hour. The theme does get deeper as it delves into globalization and modernization. It's a slow turn into this darker material that is most disconcerting. There is a reveal at the end about the boy and the father which is probably confused especially without dialogue. It could have been done straight forward.

Sweet, beautiful, wordless animated film, telling the charming, endearing and sometimes sad story of a young boy from the country going in search of his father who has moved to the city to earn money for the family.

The film seems an attempt to see through a child's eyes, and it succeeds, leading to images that are surreal, wondrous and odd, and that don't always make literal sense. Imagine how the high tech modern world would seem to a small boy of say 5, wandering in alone from the countryside. The film captures that feeling

Done in a simple, colorful, handmade style that's the opposite of most computer animation we see these days, recalling artists like Joan Miro, there's a heartfelt quality that goes with the handcrafted nature of its slightly surreal and beautiful images. Truly universal, there's not a single word of real dialogue, just some occasional gibberish-speak. There's also great Brazilian music that changes personality with the boy's adventures, along with a nice lesson for kids about the loss of the beauty of nature in the industrial world. Quite special.

Wonderfully playful animation from Brazil in which a small boy experiences the dueling wonders and terrors of big city life for the first time. The artwork, clearly on showcase opposite a rather modest storyline, varies from light and expressive to rich and densely textured. It can be a real wonder to behold, especially during moments when the child's imagination takes over and the mechanical guts of an industrial zone become huge, towering, ignorant beasts. Virtually language-free (characters speak a made-up dialect once or twice), it's more universal for that decision and really doesn't need the crutch. Though it gets heavy-handed with environmental messaging late in the journey, the film rebounds nicely with an unexpected twist and brings a little mist to the eye for the final scene. An ambitious, often stunning peek at modern life, as seen through the disbelieving eyes we all shared at one time or another, and well worthy of the Oscar attention it received.

Decades behind a computer, toiling and tinkering with the programming and software has given us the near-photographic realism of CGI animation. The culmination of which is the film Inside Out (2015) which won the Best Animated Feature Oscar this past year. Yet as anyone who truly loves animation will know, it's not about who has the most detailed techniques or the most expensive equipment. With great ideas and simple yet sublime stories, something as lo-fi as Boy and the World can move its audience to the core.

The story begins with a young boy (Garcia) who lives in a rural abode near the jungle. His father (Campos), a mustached man sporting a straw hat and a flute, grabs a suitcase and heads to the city. the boy is heartbroken by his father's sudden absence and decides to head to the city to find him. On his odyssey he meets a host of colorful characters and comes face to face with the seductiveness, absurdity and danger of modern life.

The animation is reminiscent of the work of Don Hertzfeldt. Everything is cobbled together with simple geometric shapes and seemingly done in charcoal and crayon. Yet unlike Hertzfeldt's work there isn't a sense of ruing existential doom; at its heart it is innately humanistic. Its simplicity and kaleidoscopic vision immediately strikes you with a sense of childlike wonder and as things in the story become more complex it washes over you in a flood of emotion and awe. The color palette in this film is so effective in rendering the wonder of the jungle, the bustling of the city and the rainbow-tinged weaving's of the Mestizo people that parade down the streets.

It's important to note that the movie is largely non-verbal. What is uttered is dubbed in backward Portuguese and the only guiding light you're given are the visuals and the soundtrack. And what a neat soundtrack it is! Grupo Experimental de Musica (GEM), Emicida, Nana Vasconcelos and the Bushdancers all somewhat obscure Brazilian bands that help the story gently flow through you. Not since the early work of Hayao Miyazaki has there been a more genuine work of youthful artistic expression and such a full spectrum of unfettered emotion.

A movie so deceptively simple and yet so emotionally complex comes around only once every few years, and an animation of this caliber comes round perhaps once in a generation. Some may not be hard won by it's environmental overtones and be contrarian to its thoughts on consumerism yet there's no denying that a story this human deserves attention and praise. Blink and you'll miss this little gem but if you can find it in theaters or (hopefully soon) on Netflix, I highly recommend it.