I travel a fair bit and, although I would like to pretend that it is all in my stride and that other places and cultures are just normal to me, I would be lying if I said it was always the case. In this short film we see that sense of nervousness and fear of the unfamiliar taken and summed up in a boy's inability to roll his R's – a failure that we first see when he tries to practice from his book to say the word lizard (lagarto) and Nicaragua.
His unfamiliarity with the R's is a theme that runs through the film alongside the word he stumbles on (lagarto), as the creatures are everywhere and, even when asleep on the roof of a house, he sees them as fierce and fast-moving creatures full of violence. The film ends up on an upbeat note about settling in and overcoming such cultural fears a bit, and it is a nice message. The manner of delivery is as nicely pitched as the device of using the R's to represent the differences. The animation is colourful and accessible, with nice movements into the threatening – so you understand the vibrancy of the place but yet also can appreciate the reasons why the boy gets nervous.
It is a simple affair perhaps and the message is just a plain old nice one, but it is smarter than it appears and it works well as both a narrative and as an animation.
His unfamiliarity with the R's is a theme that runs through the film alongside the word he stumbles on (lagarto), as the creatures are everywhere and, even when asleep on the roof of a house, he sees them as fierce and fast-moving creatures full of violence. The film ends up on an upbeat note about settling in and overcoming such cultural fears a bit, and it is a nice message. The manner of delivery is as nicely pitched as the device of using the R's to represent the differences. The animation is colourful and accessible, with nice movements into the threatening – so you understand the vibrancy of the place but yet also can appreciate the reasons why the boy gets nervous.
It is a simple affair perhaps and the message is just a plain old nice one, but it is smarter than it appears and it works well as both a narrative and as an animation.
