Imago (2005)

This is the kind of animated short that tends to be lost on me. Imago is more concerned with artistic expression and style than it is with entertainment. As much as I have come to appreciate the finer points of cinema, I still expect to be entertained by what I watch. The animation is very beautiful and expressive but the overall lack of a story and lack of dialogue despite several human characters held it back for me.

Even without the opening credits being in French, one look at the animation design and the color palette tells you that this is a European production. Since Hollywood is the best at cranking out entertainment on celluloid, many European filmmakers are able to concern themselves with ideas, expression and meaning. Imago tells the story of a young boy who loves planes, despite the fact that his father, an aviator, died not too long ago in a plane crash.

We watch this big-headed little boy imagine what it must have been like for his father on his fateful trip. After this, we are fast forwarded through the boy’s life, seeing only the barest of clips from his home life, his schooling, his falling in love and having children and grandchildren of his own. In the end, he takes his grandson to the same cliff he played on as a boy and reveals that he never lost his love for airplanes.

Maybe it’s supposed to be a metaphor for his love for his dad not going away just because his dad did. If that’s the case, then I get it. Otherwise, the fast forward serves little purpose other than to show he still has a little bit of his childhood left inside him. The lack of dialogue leaves the characters to communicate in laughs and chirps that, for me, took away from their humanity. I understand that words aren’t always necessary but they might have helped clear up the ending and meaning of this otherwise creative short.

RATING: 3 out of 5