Feral

I really liked the style of animation used here as we follow the story of a "Mowgli" style of young lad who has clearly learned to survive, animalistically, in the forest. He's having an hard time with a wolf when a hunter steps in to save the day. He takes him to his home, gives him a bath and an haircut and then promptly takes him to school where his first glimpse of the teacher sees her great big stick in hand. When it becomes clear that he has no idea what to do with a football, his classmates begin to pick on him - but they are somewhat unprepared for his innate response to their intimidation. Equally, he isn't prepared for the school's reaction to his reaction, so you have to wonder if perhaps he is just better off heading back to his snowy woodland by himself? There isn't any narration but the scoring captures the moods of optimism, pessimism and realism that are depicted really quite engagingly as the young lad swaps his own more familiar conformity for that of society's. One man's meat...?

yes, it is the wrong word. because it is touching, impressive, delicate, bitter. for me, the expected animation who has as the essence the poetry of dream. a film great for its simplicity. and for the inspired translation in image of the fight between human and animal instinct. so, a must see. for reflect. about the basic details who are essence of our humanity.

'FERAL': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Another 2014 Oscar nominated animated short film is this 13 minute tale of a wild boy found in the forest by a hunter and brought back with him to civilization (for the first time). It was written and directed by Daniel Sousa and features no dialogue. I found it to be somewhat bizarrely interesting but ultimately a letdown; it doesn't seem to really go anywhere. It is one of the more mature and dark Oscar animation entries (this year) and the visuals are nice to look at but the story has been done many times before (to much better effect). I'd say it's definitely one of the weaker nominees this year.

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FERAL is a nominee for the Best Animated Short for the awards issued in 2014 and while the beauty of its bleak and spare art is certainly moving, there is an overwhelming pomposity to its construction.

To tell a story about the overwhelming need to be free in a branch of movie-making which is the most nearly controlled of its genres, in a form in which, if the producer be dissatisfied with a performance, he can rip the actor up, is nothing short of bizarre. Every sequence, every frame, every jeer of a child's voice is added and modified at the insistence of the creator. It calls attention to its own artificiality even while decrying it. This short is, as I have said, quite beautiful, but it lacks that most essential craft in the composition of such a didactic story: the art that conceals art.

Feral is a beautifully filmed short that explores the concept of the noble savage. The animation is a glorious artistic hand-painted 2D with very subdued colors, mostly several duotones, subtle sepia hues, and with some splashes of washed-out colors towards the end. The story is well presented and narrated, and very atmospheric.

Sousa, as all the great directors of animation, don't do animation just to express their wonderful skills as visual creators, painters or designers. It is mostly about the story being told and how is being told. No surprise that this little jewel was nominated for an Oscar. It is not the animation per se, it is the whole ensemble: animation, atmosphere, music, story, narrative, and structure.

This film is Sousa's exploration of the concept of the noble savage. This has been a subject of great interest and debate since the 18th century. It is based on the idea that humans have an innate good nature and inner moral compass, which shows in primitive societies and indigenous people, but also shows in all of us when some circumstances appear. The concept survived the 19th century and entered the 20th but with the opposition of rational thinkers, anti-primitivists and anthropologists, who say that this an artificial concept that judge how people are or should be, and that civilized people can become like savage animals in certain situations.

This theme has been the subject of multiple films, mostly reflecting the romantic primitivism theory, and in a lesser degree anti-primitivism approach. Movies like Tarzan (especially Greystoke and the latest The Legend of Tarzan), The Jungle Book, Nell, The Blue Lagoon are an example of the first case, while the Lord of the Flies is of the second.

However, the first movie that came to my mind when I watched this short film was Francois Truffaut's Wild Child (based on the true story of Victor de Aveyron, a boy who was found in a French forest at the end of the 18th century in a savage state after living about 12th years without contact with other human beings and unable to speak). The movie was ambivalent enough to make viewers question who was the real savage, the wild boy of the society in which he entered. Feral connects very well with Truffaut's film, but presented in a more lyrical and tamed way. We see the feral child at ease with the wolves, we see him adjusting to civilization in certain environments and with certain people, but not with city people and society, as society in which he tries to integrate but treats him like an animal, inhumanly. Who is the savage here? Who is feral? Was the feral child impossible to tame, or the methods used totally inhumane?

We don't only see the behavior of the boy, we are provided with his feelings and spirit. That is to me, the most beautiful part of the film. To me, his spirit is what we see at the beginning and at the end, pure natural essence, and also during the film when he transforms from his white self to the essence of the wolf and of the able, who are also depicted as ghostly figures. In a way, the animal spirits of the Sioux live in the feral child, as the child seems to be a continuum between his nature and Nature.

Sousa incorporates an element that is dear to him and part of his childhood into this movie, the windmill, which is used as a sort of home or protective capsule where Sousa puts the little feral child, a comforting memory of his childhood used to encapsulates the spirit of his character and, perhaps, of his inner child.

This is a mesmerizing symbolic wonderful animated film, with a great mood and soundtrack that speaks about the connection between Nature and our nature, and what our nature is.