Boy mole fox horse & the 6th Sense *Spoiler alert - from MNHQ*

[dieselKiller]

AIBU to think that this cartoon has the same twist as The Sixth Sense?

Spoiler alert added in the title by MNHQ after we had a few reports about the content of the opening post.

Sounds like an load of old shite to me - like a movie of memes.

“I see dead people”

But it's such beautiful shite and the memes are not that shite...

I've just watched it and thought it was very odd. Vulnerable boy picked up by 3 adults who say they will help him, befriend him, convince him only they truly know him and ultimately persuade him to freeze to death in a field rather than go home to his parents.

In the book the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse represent different parts of the same person. The boy isn’t freezing to death in a field, he has found the different parts of himself and has been able to make a new home.

But he's about 8, he's not old enough to live independently, and he's in a field with no food/coat/shelter. He needs his basic needs fulfilled before he gets involved in all that pseudo-philosophical waffle.

The field is his mind / emotions.

🤣🤣

I'm glad it wasn't just me who thought it was shite. I thought it was a children's story I hadn't heard of so sat down to watch it with my kids but it was just wooly self-help memes stitched together for the "Be Kind" brigade who live in oodies, under their weighted blankets, surrounded by their squishmallow collections. Beautiful animation, though.

We turned it off half way through as no one was particularly enjoying it, and I thought the music was really naff too, a bit too try hard.

This is also a compelling perspective that is well-supported by the story.

The idea that the animal advisers and the boy represent characteristics of a single person is an interesting one. This suggests that the work is actually a critique of self-help aphorisms since following the advisers leads to a rejection of adult life (the boy rejects his home), a retreat into infantilism (the boy remains a boy, surrounded by talking animals), and a slow, lonely psychic death (the boy must surely freeze to death in a field with only his own thoughts for company).

This seems a little bleak, so I prefer to imagine that the boy is exploring the afterlife and coming to terms with his inability to return to the land of the living.

It is a movie of memes, but not like a load of old shite imo. Beautifully done, quite pleasant to watch.

Not sure if a load of quotes translate that well to a short film but was nice nonetheless.

Wanted to turn it off but DD wouldn't let us.

Can't help but think the reactions on here would be very different if it had been a girl saying they wanted to be kind.

Charlie M is an artist. He has been all his life and works in a variety of mediums, for example he's a talented sculptor. He was pretty well known before the pandemic, but really came to public attention then because people shared his little works a lot during that time. The book - it's not a childrens' book really, it's an art project. Just as I enjoy art books by say Beryl Cook, I love dipping into The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.

I found the timing of the film on BBC a bit odd, think it could have gone on later, but that's not the artist's fault. I would never have considered it being aimed at young children, although his work is enjoyed by youngsters and adults. For me the documentary about Charlie was lovely to watch, but also gave some insight into him as an artist, and how the book and film came about. So good to watch both if you did like the animation.
My guess is that he'd be quite puzzled by some of the complicated interpretations of the film that people are coming up with. 😁
Anyway, I'm going to see the exhibition at Sotheby's in the new year and hoping I might get to see Charlie and have him sign my book.

That's a bit of a stretch isn't it? 😁
Nice that your DD enjoyed it and you didn't turn it off. Different strokes eh?

Not much of a stretch when there's constant anger against be kind and outrage that it's used just to silence women and girls.

Quite. It was really odd. And why couldn't the mole have cake?

I've seen a few of the memes and quite liked them but the show was weird.

Exactly! I put on Motherland as light relief as first Christmas without DH saying to my in laws - oh this will be great
I had just recovered from watching 'Ghosts'
Bad move!

“Why couldn’t the mole have cake?” Is a great question. I suspect it’s also a question that could only be asked by someone that has never attempted to feed cake to a mole. But this is where we are.

It’s fine as a book, I have it. Stringing it together into an animation works less well.

the only real disappointment for me is that all the animals are male. Why? Why are nearly all animals “he”? I think there would be a bit of a problem if this was reality. Maybe only the male ones can speak 😂

The mole did get cake if you watched the credits to the end.

None of us did. It was so odd and preachy we couldn't wait for it to be done.

This!! I watched by chance when I was on and thought it very strange. The messages were delivered in an almost patronising way.
Tired same old script.
But yes, what was going on with the boy?

This thread is like a GCSE English Lit lesson where the teacher desperately tries to argue that the characters red dress is symbolic of blood lust or some such reach that the author never gave a moments notice to!
I truly don’t think the animation has any more to it than what you see at face value.
There was a whole hour preamble show about the author and the development of the animation and it was not so much as hinted that it was anything more than it’s basic premise.