“Negative Space" – Nominee, Best Animated Short Film

This was an interesting little film and I'm glad that something in the stop motion animation style was nominated this year. The Whistler Film Festival website lists it as "A nostalgic animated short about the complicated relationship between a father, who travels often for business, and the son he leaves behind."

It truly is a wonderful little film with some of the most fluid stop motion animation I've seen in a long time. In several scenes it is difficult to tell that it is stop motion at all unless you really pay attention.

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Summary
(Spoiler Alert)
"Negative Space" is the remembrance of a young man who learned to pack from his father at a very young age. From the opening line "My dad taught me how to pack," we start to see the connection  between the narrator and his father while at the same time, can probably learn something about packing ourselves. The story looks back on first learning to pack as a small boy, imagined as if the tube socks are large mats and the boy himself can fit in a suitcase with plenty of room to spare.

Cutting back to present day, he drives through the snow to an unknown destination, still reminiscing about bonding with his father over luggage, instead of the more traditional bonding over sports or cars. As the boy got older, he would take it upon himself to pack for his father when he went away. The father wouldn't check the bag before leaving, only text boy one word, "perfect," upon reaching his destination.

At last, we see the young man pull his car into a parking spot at what we learn is a funeral home, meeting his mother outside. A small group of people converses inside the funeral home and the man steals away from conversation when he can, to return to the room where his father's casket still lies, open. The film closes with him telling how awful the funeral was, specifically his own focus on all the wasted space in the coffin.

Analytical Critique
Despite the narrator's aversion to negative space in this film, unused space is pervasive throughout the film. From his apartment at the beginning which gives his dialog a hollow echo, to the backseat of his car that only holds a small toolbox, to the highway he drives along with only a few scant cars driving on it, when you look around, you can see (or not see, I guess) negative space all around him. This must be a conscious choice on the part of the filmmakers and serves as a strong, but subconscious, reminder that not everything can be in his control like the packing is.

We only get one voice throughout the film, that of the narrator. The only other character who "speaks" if the father, and then only through the text message read by the narrator. It would be interesting to hear the father's take on his son as a grown man and how he is focusing on the wasted space in the coffin at the end.

As I mentioned above, the animation in this film is tremendous. In one scene, the narrator drives through a tunnel. The shifting light patterns on his face as he drives are captured in perfect detail and he even shifts his eyes slightly at one point to look at the rear view mirror as he drives. A similar use of shifting eyes happens in the funeral home near the end which, along with strategic shifts in focus, serve to strengthen the fluidity of the motion.

The transition from present day to flashbacks is seamless throughout the film, and often achieved by a car driving along a road which turns into a luggage zipper or the hardwood floor with clothes laid out around it. It is these clever little devices that help drive the narrative along while filling in little pieces of the backstory.

Final Analysis
Looking through the recent history of the Best Animated Short category at the Oscars, it appears that the last stop motion film to take home this award was Peter and the Wolf, released in 2006. That marks over a decade since a stop motion film has won the prize and if any had a chance to do it, Negative Space was certainly a great contender.

The story is bittersweet and hopefully urges you to reflect on the things you have before they are gone. If you share a bond with your parents and they are still with us, reach out to them and remind them of that bond before it's too late.