Borrowed Time

"Borrowed Time" is Pixar animated short film, directed by Andrew Coats & Lou Hamou-Lhadj. This animation contrasts with many of Pixars upbeat, child-orientated movies and shorts, and takes a dramatic and emotional direction. Exploring a damaged mentality of a young boy who accidentally shoots his father whilst trying to save him from falling by holding a gun. Damaged to such an extent we see him on the edge of a cliff contemplating suicide. 

From a 3D perspective the visuals are stunningly rendered, at the start we find it hard to believe its all 3D because of how realistic it looks. It all feels so real even with the strikingly obvious cartoony character design, his clothes look like real fabric.

But realism is not why I like it so much, thats only an aspect I admire about it. What I love is how they have captured emotion. The use of pathetic fallacy is a physical weather representation to his solemn, dull feelings which further intensifies his sadness. Contrastingly it is bright and sunny when he is back with his dad pronouncing the joy he felt with him until the cliff hanging scene where you can see the storm clouds rolling in to heighten the feeling of tension. But the thing that gets me the most is his eyes. Never in an animation before have I seen eyes convey so many emotions directly to me, they are so focal. They convey so effectively exactly his feelings, from when hes with his dad to when hes on the cliff on his own.

It also takes advantage of effective cut scenes to reflect how much the flashbacks traumatise him as after each flashback he gradually lowers more and more to the earth. The motif of the watch being broken is also a physical metaphor to his fathers tragic death.

One thing that I feel is lacking within this animation is the narrative loss inbetween his fathers death to how he is on the cliff top now, decades later by his physical older appearance. I would of loved to see how he got to that point, what events have passed for him to now start recalling the tragedy. How he obviously has gotten on with his life and why only now does he seek to recall such tragedy and contemplate the ending of his life?