ANIMATION FOR EVERYBODY

After recently purchasing, watching and thoroughly enjoying Wes Anderson's stop-motion feature, Fantastic Mister Fox, it came to my attention that when I picked it up in the shop to buy it that it was in the Kids section. Whilst usually not being one to be irked by labels attached to films and their targeted audience, I feel different when it comes to animated films. The pairing of animation and children is something that I feel is unfair and a discredit to the amount of a work and talent involved with making a full-length animated film.

If there needs to be one single example of an animated film that can be enjoyed by people of all ages, perhaps even more-so by those old enough to appreciate the hard work put into it, it would be Fantastic Mr Fox. The film takes the audience on a complete adventure, playing with tropes of animation films in a typically quirky Wes Anderson way. Just one of the ways in which the film shows that it shares my opinion and can connect with an adult audience just as much as it could with a younger one is shown in the picture to the right, with an obvious allusion to Kubrick's outrageously violent 'A Clockwork Orange'.

 As you can see from Google's definition of animation, it is the act of being alive, or in film terms, bringing life to something, that is the main attraction. Bringing these animals alive with believable personalities and human characteristics is what makes the film such a success in my eyes. When a director can make an audience able to predict the decisions and future actions of a group of foxes, badgers and rats, it is worth commending the effort and dedication required.

This post isn't really going anywhere. I was going to delete and wait 'til tomorrow to write a full length post on something different and cohesive, but I think the basis of my point has been made here. The full appreciation of animation is one that only adults can achieve, with children seeing the outline of the plot and the cute little talking animals, it takes a grown up to be able to look at the wider themes and watch the film as exactly what it is.. a piece of art.