Feral (2012) User Reviews

The animation style is unique and nice.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 8 February 2014]

This year's crop of Oscar-nominated animated shorts is unusual. In the past, normally there are 2 or 3 films which are exceptional and I would be happy seeing any of them win. This year, however, "Get a Horse!" is so superior that I would be incredibly shocked if it did not win. Now I normally prefer shorts from small film companies--as I want to encourage the non-corporate players and an Oscar is a great way to do it. But Disney simply outdid itself and the rest just pale in comparison.

I'll cut right to it on this particular short--I really don't know why it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short. It's got some nice and unusual animation but to me it is by far the weakest of the nominees and I've seen a lot of other shorts (especially the Commended Shorts that were shown along with the Nominees in the theaters this weekend) that were better.

Story-wise, there isn't a whole lot here and it's told without words. A feral boy is found in the wild and brought to civilization by a hunter. The child has difficulty fitting in and that's really it.

The animation style is what I appreciated in this one. While there are no faces on this animation, it really isn't simple because the style and artistry is there. Nice to see once.

Somewhat bizarrely interesting but ultimately a letdown.

[Hellmant · 5/10 · 19 February 2014]

'FERAL': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Another 2014 Oscar nominated animated short film is this 13 minute tale of a wild boy found in the forest by a hunter and brought back with him to civilization (for the first time). It was written and directed by Daniel Sousa and features no dialogue. I found it to be somewhat bizarrely interesting but ultimately a letdown; it doesn't seem to really go anywhere. It is one of the more mature and dark Oscar animation entries (this year) and the visuals are nice to look at but the story has been done many times before (to much better effect). I'd say it's definitely one of the weaker nominees this year.

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Visuals yes, story no

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 27 July 2015]

"Feral" is an animated short film from 3 years ago. It runs for 12 minutes and managed an Academy Award nomination. It is probably my favorite from the nominees, but that is not because I think this is a must-see, but because it really was a weak set of nominees including the winner "Mr Hublot". Feral definitely delivers in terms of the animation style. It is certainly not for everybody, but I liked it. The way they used all these shades of gray made it look truly artistic. And I also liked the inclusion of color near the ending when the protagonist reunited with nature. What I did not like that much was the story. It's a bit of "Jungle Book" and "Nell", but there is nothing really new or refreshing about this one sadly. It's a tale of isolation and integration when a boy is picked up in the jungle by a hunter. The boy adapted to nature and basically lived like an animal. The transformation scene around minute 9 is maybe the only really good moment from this short film and that is also more due to the animation than to the story. I would have been fine with this one getting the Oscar. Beautiful to watch and I recommend it. Lets see what the next projects by Daniel Souse will look like.

Visually beautiful short with a deceptively simple story

[llltdesq · 9/10 · 5 September 2014]

This short was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be spoilers ahead:

This is a visually beautiful and haunting short, told with no dialog. The basic premise, that a feral boy is found by a hunter and returned to civilization, is deceptively simple.

The fact is, when you find a child who has essentially lived as a wild animal for a sizable portion of his life, it is shortsighted at best to think, as the adults in the film clearly do, that merely cutting his hair and dressing him as a "proper" boy dresses makes him a boy. For starters, he has absolutely no idea what the culturally instilled modes of behavior are for a human child.

He still has the instincts of a feral animal and those will take years to break down and replace with the behaviors installed by years of being raised in the social settings of human societies. That's what this short is about.

It has precious little to do with "freedom", as the boy was no more "free" in the wild that he is in "civilization". He just trades the norms he became accustomed to in the wild, which will sooner later mean a relatively early demise (he very nearly dies before the hunter finds him) for the norms of human society. He's in a cage either way, he just traded a cage he's comfortable with for one which is strange and terrifying.

An excellent short which is available for download for a reasonable cost and is well worth tracking down. Most highly recommended.

beautiful

[Kirpianuscus · 3 November 2017]

yes, it is the wrong word. because it is touching, impressive, delicate, bitter. for me, the expected animation who has as the essence the poetry of dream. a film great for its simplicity. and for the inspired translation in image of the fight between human and animal instinct. so, a must see. for reflect. about the basic details who are essence of our humanity.

The Wild Child

[boblipton · 3/10 · 2 February 2014]

FERAL is a nominee for the Best Animated Short for the awards issued in 2014 and while the beauty of its bleak and spare art is certainly moving, there is an overwhelming pomposity to its construction.

To tell a story about the overwhelming need to be free in a branch of movie-making which is the most nearly controlled of its genres, in a form in which, if the producer be dissatisfied with a performance, he can rip the actor up, is nothing short of bizarre. Every sequence, every frame, every jeer of a child's voice is added and modified at the insistence of the creator. It calls attention to its own artificiality even while decrying it. This short is, as I have said, quite beautiful, but it lacks that most essential craft in the composition of such a didactic story: the art that conceals art.

Mesmerising exploration of human nature

[Imdbidia · 9/10 · 14 January 2017]

Feral is a beautifully filmed short that explores the concept of the noble savage. The animation is a glorious artistic hand-painted 2D with very subdued colors, mostly several duotones, subtle sepia hues, and with some splashes of washed-out colors towards the end. The story is well presented and narrated, and very atmospheric.

Sousa, as all the great directors of animation, don't do animation just to express their wonderful skills as visual creators, painters or designers. It is mostly about the story being told and how is being told. No surprise that this little jewel was nominated for an Oscar. It is not the animation per se, it is the whole ensemble: animation, atmosphere, music, story, narrative, and structure.

This film is Sousa's exploration of the concept of the noble savage. This has been a subject of great interest and debate since the 18th century. It is based on the idea that humans have an innate good nature and inner moral compass, which shows in primitive societies and indigenous people, but also shows in all of us when some circumstances appear. The concept survived the 19th century and entered the 20th but with the opposition of rational thinkers, anti-primitivists and anthropologists, who say that this an artificial concept that judge how people are or should be, and that civilized people can become like savage animals in certain situations.

This theme has been the subject of multiple films, mostly reflecting the romantic primitivism theory, and in a lesser degree anti-primitivism approach. Movies like Tarzan (especially Greystoke and the latest The Legend of Tarzan), The Jungle Book, Nell, The Blue Lagoon are an example of the first case, while the Lord of the Flies is of the second.

However, the first movie that came to my mind when I watched this short film was Francois Truffaut's Wild Child (based on the true story of Victor de Aveyron, a boy who was found in a French forest at the end of the 18th century in a savage state after living about 12th years without contact with other human beings and unable to speak). The movie was ambivalent enough to make viewers question who was the real savage, the wild boy of the society in which he entered. Feral connects very well with Truffaut's film, but presented in a more lyrical and tamed way. We see the feral child at ease with the wolves, we see him adjusting to civilization in certain environments and with certain people, but not with city people and society, as society in which he tries to integrate but treats him like an animal, inhumanly. Who is the savage here? Who is feral? Was the feral child impossible to tame, or the methods used totally inhumane?

We don't only see the behavior of the boy, we are provided with his feelings and spirit. That is to me, the most beautiful part of the film. To me, his spirit is what we see at the beginning and at the end, pure natural essence, and also during the film when he transforms from his white self to the essence of the wolf and of the able, who are also depicted as ghostly figures. In a way, the animal spirits of the Sioux live in the feral child, as the child seems to be a continuum between his nature and Nature.

Sousa incorporates an element that is dear to him and part of his childhood into this movie, the windmill, which is used as a sort of home or protective capsule where Sousa puts the little feral child, a comforting memory of his childhood used to encapsulates the spirit of his character and, perhaps, of his inner child.

This is a mesmerizing symbolic wonderful animated film, with a great mood and soundtrack that speaks about the connection between Nature and our nature, and what our nature is.