Mondo’s Search For The Sun

Mondo is hand-drawn on a CGI background, somewhat out of place, somewhat out of sorts. The sun has gone away, and he must find it. He has a machine for doing just that, but things don't go quite as he planned. The sky is dark, the countryside snowy, and there are mysteries afoot.

Be it drifts of keys, endless rooms lined with drawers, flying whales or bicycle-powered airships, Mondo's search has a fantastical air that recalls Coraline and other proper fairy tales. The character design is good, but there is a slight disjunct between the background and the rest of the animation. That's not to say it isn't striking, indeed the snow effects are impressive, but elements of it are remarkable; in the same way that Roobarb And Custard had oddities from its felt-tip colouration, the animation appears as flickering watercolours. It doesn't have quite the same painterly quality as Tad's Nest, indeed it appears almost washed out. That distracting quality works against the film. Jamie Smith's music is an important component of the feel of the film, but good as it is it can't carry the film.

Jana Prchalova's a talented artist, but the script is a little weak. There are certainly strong moments, a solid narrative, but the context of Mondo's quest is uncertain - somewhere too realistic to be allegorical, too false to be genuine, it's hampered by being somewhere in between rather than strengthened by liminality. Its length of 11 minutes is also a little problematic - it's short enough that we feel it can do more but long enough that it feels like it should have done. Despite the good efforts of those involved, Mondo's Search For The Sun feels a little flat, as if it's missing something. There's certainly potential, but like many of the doors that Mondo encounters, it's still waiting to be unlocked.