Lazy Boy
09-30-2005, 10:21 PM
Rating: 8/10
Carroll Ballard, whose films include the beautiful Fly Away Home and Never Cry Wolf, has created another gem that will not only enthrall children, but any adult whose heart is still beating. Ballard's strength in those films, and this one, is to capture childlike innocence against the beauty of the natural environment, in all its splendor and predatory ways. The film deals with death, and takes time on the journey to examine that without making it melodramatic or forced -- a lot of kid's films would create a situation and take the easy way out.
I loved how the camera glided across the desert plains and arid wildlands -- try to remember a similar shot in Fly Away Home with the young girl hang gliding across a lake, mirroring her and the geese. These scenes exist in Ballard's ouevre not to stand alone (although they are striking) but to serve as a way to push the narrative in exciting and visually provocative ways.
See this film -- critics have been championing it for months, and only the audiene can keep its distribution alive and well.
Carroll Ballard, whose films include the beautiful Fly Away Home and Never Cry Wolf, has created another gem that will not only enthrall children, but any adult whose heart is still beating. Ballard's strength in those films, and this one, is to capture childlike innocence against the beauty of the natural environment, in all its splendor and predatory ways. The film deals with death, and takes time on the journey to examine that without making it melodramatic or forced -- a lot of kid's films would create a situation and take the easy way out.
I loved how the camera glided across the desert plains and arid wildlands -- try to remember a similar shot in Fly Away Home with the young girl hang gliding across a lake, mirroring her and the geese. These scenes exist in Ballard's ouevre not to stand alone (although they are striking) but to serve as a way to push the narrative in exciting and visually provocative ways.
See this film -- critics have been championing it for months, and only the audiene can keep its distribution alive and well.