Away, 2019.
Directed by Gints Zilbalodis.
SYNOPSIS:
A young boy wakes to find himself hanging from a tree by his parachute. He has apparently crash landed on a mysterious island, one which is inhabited by a menagerie of creatures, as well as a giant spirit who pursues him across this strange new land as he attempts to find a way back home.
Throughout Away, mystery and intrigue are as entwined as the parachute strings from which our nameless protagonist hangs during the haunting opening sequence of Gints Zilbalodis‘ stunning animated adventure.
It’s a fairytale fable split into a series of chapters, over which dances an air of ethereal fantasy, one that quickly washes over the viewer, intoxicating them with it’s wordless action, propulsive score, and minimalist rotoscoped rendering. It’s quite unlike anything you’ve seen in a long while.
The world traversed by the boy is part Land of the Giants and part Princess Mononoke, in fact the biggest compliment you could pay Away is that it feels like one of the best Ghibli films not to be made by the legendary animated studio.
The giant lumbering spirit (who feels like a distant relation to Spirited Away‘s ‘No-Face’), the forest cats, the fast-evolving birds, all make up the menagerie of beautifully strange creatures who inhabit this otherworldly plane of existence.
You’ll ask yourself, where is this place? Is it even real? How did the boy end up in the tree? Ultimately the answers to such questions soon become irrelevant, because the journey you take with him down this rabbit hole is enchanting enough.
Away is rather like having a really great dream: there isn’t necessarily a beginning or an end, and you’re venturing into a skewed reality, in which there are moments that frighten and amaze you in equal measure, and when it’s all over you’re left with that indelible memory of having just experienced something special that you can’t wait to revisit.
The animation employed by Zilbalodis is simple, and simply stunning. Basic shapes and palettes colour this world, but they’re used in such a unique way that the results are breath-taking. There’s a multi-angle bridge crossing that turns into a meticulous action set-piece, and a scene in which our young explorer rides his motorbike beneath a flock of birds is the type of spectacle that cinema was made for.
If you’re a fan of Michael Dudock de Wit’s The Red Turtle, then Away is a similarly enchanting exercise in dialogue-free, sumptuously realised animation.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film ★ ★ ★ ★ ★/ Movie ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Matt Rodgers – Follow me on Twitter @mainstreammatt
