Oh Willy... (2013)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Sorry, this movie sucks

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

"Oh Willy..." is a 17-minute animated short film from 2012, which means next year it will have its 5th anniversary. It was one of the biggest winners of the awards season back then and brought filmmakers Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels a great share of honors. This movie is a co-production between Belgium, France and the Netherlands, but don't worry, none of these languages is used in here as it is a silent film in terms of dialogue. Music and sound effects exist of course. This is the story of Willy, a man who goes back to nature and ends up alone in the wild living next to wild animals and eating what he can get on his own. I cannot agree with all the awards bodies though. The only thing I liked about this film was the animation of the landscapes, but not the one of the humans. Story-wise, I wasn't convinced either. What stays memorable are the many obscenities like Willy taking a ****, Willy vomiting or Willy drinking from a huge monster's breast at the very end. I also cannot say this film delivered to me in terms of a journey back to nature. It did not deliver for any reason. i give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

I think it was in Parks & Rec where one of the characters decided to take up stop-motion and, after pouring loads of time into it, had a few seconds of a character walking (badly) across a room – the end. I think this joke is the reason why I have such love for this as a type of animation, because, although all creative projects are work, there is a very clear painstaking process at work in the constant and tiny manipulation of characters to make them move. Even more impressive though, as the P&R joke also contains, is that making the animation move is easy compared to taking all those minute movements, and making them a great product.Oh Willy... manages to do both of these things, although being honest it is the technical aspect that really made it stand out for me. Everything appears to have been made out of wool in some form or other, and it has a great visual 'feel' to the film with a fuzzy wooly texture across all the characters. The animation has great movement, and also very impressive creation of wide shots and close- ups; it looks so good it is easy to forget just how much work must have gone into this. It should not take away from the story though, which is wonderfully odd.It starts with moments from a childhood spend in a nudist colony, the passing of a mother, and ultimately leads to the man finding peace in a most unusual place. I am not entirely sure it works as a story in and of itself, but the film very much contains and sells its own oddity – so it works I the context of the film itself, which means it works more or less. It is an impressive piece in regard to many aspects, and it is certainly a piece to admire.

'Oh Willy' was released in 2013 and runs for 17 minutes. IMDb's plot summary hardly helped to understand what I saw, and neither did the Los Angeles Jury who awarded the short with a prize ('It tells a story of life, death and rebirth with wobbly thighs, vomit, breastfeeding, space travel and bunny rabbits - all against the backdrop of a nudist colony.'), but I was certainly spellbound, and it also moved me. Those eyes...Characters, interiors and landscapes were made from felt and woolly fabrics, giving Willy's world a wonderful warm, fuzzy quality. Unless frontal rag doll nudity freaks you out, 'Oh Willy' is a must.