The Flying Sailor (2022)
The Flying Sailor Review
The Flying Sailor is a 2022 animated short film directed by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby. It’s an artistic, but thinly plotted movie.
When a nearby ship explodes, a sailor is launched on an unexpected existential voyage. The short explores the fragility of life through a sailor’s near-death experience inspired by the real life catastrophic Halifax Explosion of 1917. This was the biggest accidental tragedy in human history as it led to many lives lost and this sailor actually survived while being blown 4 kilometers away from the place. Although this was a great premise for a short film treatment, the execution was problematic unfortunately.
The best aspect of this movie is the animation. It is a beautiful and utterly unique mixture of 3D CGI animation with the watercolor effect. The result is a movie that feels fittingly aquatic and painterly. You can always expect great animation from National Film Board of Canada. The score is also truly beautiful and grandiose, elevating the story at hand significantly. The choice to make the entire film about the sailor’s past recollections as his past flashes before his eyes was also a sound one. However, we never met him properly as he wasn’t developed at all, leading to an emotionally empty film that failed to move me.
