Boy And The World (2014) is one of the greatest animated films ever made

One of the best parts of doing Unseen Films is I get to do do overs. Sometimes I review a film and then I realize that I messed up and I can do another one to fix it.

I did that with the animated film BOY AND THE WORLD. Last year I saw it at the New York International Children’s Film Festival and it blew me away. Yes I had problems but overall what it did right just laid me out. It knocked my socks off so much that I’ve spent the last year calling it one of the greatest animated films ever made… something I was sure I did in the review that ran last year.

Sadly I didn’t.

Apparently I wrote a positive but neutral review where I never said how good it was. Mostly I talked about being intellectually moved by the film but not emotionally. Which considering how I’ve been talking about the film is rather odd. I mean I recently spent a long walk in NYC talking to a friend about nothing but the film.

Let me correct everything BOY AND THE WORLD is one of the best animated films ever made.

The story of a young boy who goes out into the world it is full of visual delights and intellectual wonders. It’s a film about a child’s grand adventure that is really something else.(I'm not going to tell you what that something else is because you'll have to find it yourself, kind of like the meaning of life)

It’s a film that will delight kids with all of the magical things that happen and move to tears their parents who will relate to the deeper meanings of everything. This truly is a film that really does work on two levels. The split I the film is best explained by the comment in my notes from the screening about the kids talking about all of the really cool parts while their parents sat in their seats and wiped tears away as they realized what the film was really about and who the little boy was.

Over the last 18 months the wonder of just how director Ale Abreu welded these seemingly separate two paths into one has blown me away. More importantly as I have thought about what was done and what happened the films emotional resonances have grown and blossomed into something truly special. The film hasn’t left me since I saw it and I’ve simply been unable to go a day without some part of it coming to mind. BOY AND THE WORLD has literally become part of me.

You have to see this film.

The film opens Friday so make plans to see it since you really need to see this big.