The Boy and the World

Here's the thing ... sometimes a minor irritation with a film grows into a gnawing dissatisfaction and you just can't stop from wishing you were watching ANYTHING else. I'm generally not fond of films that try to use visuals to hard sell thuddingly simple political ideas. Despite this film's beauty ... it's also a wellspring of shallow political nonsense and I grew to deeply resent it treating me like an imbecile.

Nice message, lame story, great visuals and fun music. The biggest negative I had with this movie is the fact that it was way too long, I got bored about 20 minutes in.

A country boy sets off in search of his laborer father, and finds himself increasingly lost in an over-industrialized world. That's about it for the story, but the beautifully stylized animation and surprisingly effective air of melancholy sustain it, at least to a degree; the environmentalist message, however, is rather heavy-handed, and the narrative becomes awfully convoluted towards the end. Still, it's to the Academy's credit that they nominated this over the mediocre THE GOOD DINOSAUR.

Intriguing and engrossing animation, but somewhat short on story.

I'm trying to watch all the 2016 Oscar nominees, and this 2013 Brazilian creation turned up in the Best Animated Feature Film of the Year category. A unique film which relies on simple drawings and creative blend of scenes for a wonderful industrial journey through culture and conflicting classes. Political criticism packaged in almost free-form of color and shapes with a kid traveling to the big city. Only wish they'd done something equally as wonderful with the end which sort of just drifts.

Maybe too politically toned -- specially in the second half, pretty much a dystopia about corporate industry, labour and leisure --, but it's arresting and bleak in its own both shy and vivid way, with Carnaval, music and nature colors in opposition to urban greed, prostitution, repression -- basically a symphony about joy and sadness, nature and machines (eating nature).

The animation is pretty, but by the end of the first act I was needing something a whole lot more. Thankfully, Boy and the World delivered, and by the end I was wishing the film was a whole lot longer.

There's NOTHING here story-wise, it's just environmentalist propaganda. It's very cute that people who made this movie care about the environment but if you are a filmmaker you got to create characters and a story as well, that way you can give your message without beating the audience over the head with it. The only good thing is that the animation's absolutely breathtaking and that's the only reason this gets 50 from me. I respect the beauty of it, the rest is rubbish.