The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Lessmore - an Oscar-winning Animated Tale
By Mariagrazia
@SMaryG
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg has recently won the Oscar in the category "Short". I wasn't so interested in the glamour of the Oscar night this year. I wasn't interested in none of the films either. So I only came to see this touching, poetic winning short yesterday thanks to Austen author Laura Hile who posted about it on her facebook wall.
You know, my best favorite books are books about ... books (Farhenheit 451, for instance). So, being this short about books helped me to overcome my wariness of animated movies and my little fondness for Oscar-winning works.
Well, especially since it is about flying books. It was not by chance that I chose to add just flying books to my blue banner and to call my blog FLY HIGH! I'm truly convinced books can make us fly. Fly high over this world's pettiness, fly away from its ugliness, fly far beyond its boundaries.
I was touched by this tale full of flying books, by its music, its dreamy pictures, its little awkward protagonist. I smiled a lot all through it but was moved to tears in the end.
A young man is alone on the balcony of his house, which is surrounded by many other tall buildings in a big city. He is sitting between two piles of books, one on his left and the other one on his right. He seems peacefully engaged in the writing of a book when, suddenly a rough wind starts blowing and , growing stronger and stronger, it sweeps away everything: the words he has just written on the paper first and then hundreds of books, houses, people in a catastrophic, overpowering wirlwhind.
The whirl blows away the young man's book and even he himself is swept away by that inexorable power. He will land back inside an upside-down house, his book is with him, but completely blank, so he will start wandering about in a gray world made bleak by that inexplicable catastrophe, covered all over by the remains of the books torn into pieces by the violent event.
The sweet, funny little man - who reminds both Buster Keaton and Charlot in his features and movements - has lost the words in his book and the blissed expression he had while writing it at the beginning of the story.
However, the world turns into colours again when a beautiful young girl flying above, carried by a bunch of coloured flying books, appears in the sky, smiles at him and gives him a gift: one of her flying books. Following it, he will arrive at a beautiful house inhabited by thousands of books where he will live reading and trying to start writing again...
What about watching it now? It's only 15 minutes. Grab your favorite mug full of your favorite drink, relax in your more comfortable armchair and ... click below. Get ready. It'll be impossible not to fly. No need to fasten your seat belts. Set your imagination free...
Have you landed back? Ready to share your impressions and musings? What's the wind symbol of? What's the message in the final scenes? What's the meaning of the man taking the place of the flying girl? He gives the book that took him all his life to write to the little girl. What's that symbol of? And last but not least, what do you especially like in this brilliant animated short? I'd love to hear from you.