Nebula by students from Gobelins is simply brilliant.
It reminds me of being young and it reminds me of Ocarina of Time. To talk about the latter is to talk closely about my own life, and probably at too much length, so I’ll just talk about the first. I truly love this little film and how it feels and tastes.
It reminds me of youth, when any and everything was possible. It doesn’t feel strange for a creature like this to show up when you’re a kid, because why wouldn’t mythological beasts enter your everyday life? We spend enough time dreaming about them, thinking about them, learning about their mythologies, falling in love with those ancient stories that we’re still so defined by.
Who am I not to love all this?
This film, though, it’s so near and dear to what my childhood felt like to me. The way so much of life seemed shrouded in mist, hidden and mysterious, and then these beautiful and bizarre moments would break through reality’s veneer and change the way I understood life and the world and reality. And that change was at a fundamental level, not a rational or sociological one.
As a child I fell in love with my imagination. I lived there, quite effortlessly, and I transitioned between the world in my head and the world beyond quite easily, and sometimes rapidly.
My mother allowed me to be peculiar, and though she certainly wishes I were normaler, she’s still amused by my strangeness, all these years later. She still tells anyone who will listen about the way I dressed as Captain Hook, how I Power Rangered around, how a cape was the most constant part of my wardrobe, how I pounced around the house like a panther, rather than walk like a normal child.
I dreamt of dragons. I lived on fire and ice. I spent my days in a mix of dreams and realities. I danced to Michael Jackson while the ghosts hounded me.
I danced with dreams.
I was alive, dreaming,
I dreamt alive.
And those were beautiful days, my childhood. The many years have fractured the experiences and shuffled them to confuse what and who and when and where, but I still love the time I’ve spent there. As an adult, I rediscover my childhood every day, and every day becomes a beautiful journey.
Maybe I’ve always been chasing my own childhood and that’s why I love cartoons so much. Maybe that’s why I do these sometimes weekly posts about animated film.
I don’t think it’s as simple as that, but cartoons have certains played a huge part in my life. It turned me to anthropomorphic creatues who talked and laughed and performed casual violence without repercussions. I wonder sometimes if they taught me how to love animals and the beautiful strangeness of life. They made me closer to animals and I still feel more empathy and connection to dogs than I do to these other humans who populate life.
I don’t think that’s wrong to admit, that I’m close to any building or situation that will ever arrive.
And this little girl in Nebula brings me back to those early days. When my dog still lived, when life was simple and easy and free, when I would dance alone through the neighborhood playing with stray dogs.
But things have changed.
I’ve found a new love.
I’ve discovered what it means to love and be loved.
And it brings me back to those golden halfremembered memories of the lives I had back then.
She sees the world transform before here.
It is an awesome sight.
Nebula will show you how great and fantastic and gorgeous it is to be alive.
It’s something I struggle with daily, but cartoons have saved my life before, and they’ll continue saving my live. They remind me who I am, who I’ve been, who I always hope to be.
I want to live inside the beauty of this animation.
And it is beautifully drawn, this little film. The story is simple and direct, but it’s gorgeous. Perfectly realised and perfectly made.
It just hits me so deep and makes me so happy to see.
It’s about life and love and passion without being dark or heavy.
It brings me home.
It comforts me.
It saves me.
I hope it does that for you, too.Short Film,
