A Unicorn in the Garden

Very few movies can truly capture the spirit of its subject. "The Last Unicorn" literally changed my life, my way of seeing the world, of understanding why people do what they do, and what is my role in it. But, before that, there was "The Unicorn in The Garden". It is not an ordinary movie, it is "sincere", like very few artworks turn out to be, mainly nowadays. It's not that computer generated graphics and super surround sounds are not a wonder to see and hear, but if you don't have a good story to hold everything in place, all you get are some minutes of entertainment that you will just forget after you watch the next movie. The opposite is not true, though. If you have a good story, and you know how to tell it, then it doesn't matter how your graphics look, or that the sound doesn't shake your guts every time something explodes on the screen, and the makers knew that. "The Unicorn in The Garden" has a wonderful story, it is extremely well told, with a good "timing", and even the graphics, that may seem "drafty", at first, have their purpose, they enhance the focus on the story and not in the action (no, it is not an excuse, it's easy to see that watching other U.P.A. productions of the same time). A must-see to all Unicorn lovers...

I remember reading this story in middle school. I became enamored with the wonderful wit and insights of James Thurber. I thought "The Night the Bed Fell" to be one of the funniest stories ever written, all under the guise that these were Thurber's relatives. This tale is a short one. We empathize with the husband whose I'll-tempered wife won't listen to him. He sees a unicorn in the garden eating roses and wants so badly to be listened to. When his dreams are crushed, he manages to work things out to his advantage. It reveals a real sense of justice. Thurber's simple drawings still create wonderful personality among his characters. One of the best animations I've seen despite its simplicity.

The Unicorn in the Garden (1953)

*** (out of 4)

Charming and at times funny short from UPA has a husband seeing a unicorn eating flowers in his garden so he tells his wife who basically tells him to shut up and go on. The husband then sees the unicorn again and once again his mean wife pushes him away. After the second time the wife decides to call a mental hospital to report her husband. I'm not going to spoil where the film goes from here but there's no question that this animated short is very funny and the twist at the end is certainly good enough to make the film worth sitting through. Once again I can see how some might not enjoy the visual look of UPA but I think it really works well here and especially the scenes with the unicorn and the bright yellow background. I also thought the husband character was very charming and a perfect mix for the mean and dark wife. The animation fits the material quite well and I think fans of the genre should really enjoy it.

While UPA is often revered as one of the most innovative animation studios of its time to this day, that's not to say they hit the mark every single time. In addition to the dwindling Mr. Magoo series, they embraced the art of animation to a point where they ended up dipping into feets of pretension and indulgence, especially when trying to come off as too high brow for the mainstream crowd. One of the biggest offenders is their 1953 adaptation of the James Thurber fable, The Unicorn in the Garden. Despite being hailed as a truly magnificent piece of film within the animation field, it might not exactly hold up in the modern age quite as smoothly.

The basic premise of the short follows a man who informs his wife that he saw a unicorn in their front garden, only for the wife to attempt getting him back for such a make believe lie. While very simple in both concept and execution, the main theme of the story is to not expect one's hopes to be an utter certainty. As this theme is presented through a bitter marriage, the single downfall of this entire short is how outdated it is by modern standards. Given that this was made at a time when the media would often route for the henpecked husband over the aggressive wife, the whole film ends up becoming less about embracing make believe than it does about miserable married couples outsmarting one another. What isn't helped is how much they play around with the wife being mischievous, even if she has every right to get back at her seemingly looney husband. Perhaps the short might have worked better as a full blown thriller instead of a comedy, but alas, what we get is a sad case of revenge between two middle aged people who should have just gotten divorced.

In terms of better qualities, the art direction is nothing short of brilliant, especially since the film brings the simplified graphic Thurber style into animation gorgeously. While the character and layout design are far more minimalized than the average UPA short as a result, the character animation, specific staging and color direction allow the film to present itself in the best way it possibly can. If a scene calls for ambience, the colors are bright and cheery; if a scene needs to come off as disturbingly brooting, grim shadows will plague the light; if a scene needs to be mellow, the character's inner thoughts will come out clear as day. The score by David Raskin comes off very melodious while still having a certain level of uneasiness all throughout the short's narrow length. It's almost as if the short is meant to be a dream of sorts, especially when one could never possibly see a scenario presented in the film ever accompanying reality. And yet, despite that possible theory, it's nevertheless unclear as to whether we can laugh or mourn over the dysfunctional marriage happening on screen.

So is Unicorn in the Garden truly another magnificent triumph within the UPA filmography? It may depend on who you ask, for it could either be seen as a witty satire on non trustworthy relationships or a failed artistic interpretation on exploring marriages. Whenever one might imagine a single entity that could easily come off as too high brow for its own good, an easy answer could be this, just like many other UPA experiments that would try to bite off more than they could chew in terms of speaking their minds on what makes strong artistic content. Alas, don't count your boobies until they're hatched.

I found this cartoon on YouTube while I was doing some research on cel-animated dialogues as part of a university assignment. Although everything about this cartoon is simple (the character designs, lip-sync and colour scheme especially), the unicorn is cute and the garden is beautifully designed. The animation is also straightforward yet impressive since it uses basic principles such as exaggeration (when the man's arm stretches to close the blinds), squash and stretch (the woman stretching upwards and the psychiatrist squashing downwards) and staging (in particular the arrangement of the policemen, women and psychiatrist sitting down when the woman reports what her husband saw). I also thought the background music was pleasant and the moral was decent.

All in all this is a rare gem that was well worth the search, in spite of its somewhat repetitive dialogue, and reminiscent of classic Aesop's fables. 8/10.