Eye For Film >> Movies >> The Gift (2005) Film Review
The Gift
Reviewed by: Amber Wilkinson
Animation is all about style – if you can find something distinctive you’re on to a winner.
Jessica Langford has style by the bucketload. By using sand to animate her story she gives it a fluid, impressionistic feel, perfectly suited to her fable about a girl who meets a sea king beneath the waves, only for time to play a trick on her.
Like fellow Scotland-based animator Selina Cobley, Langford has taken folk myths – in this case Orkadian and Japanese – and crafted them together to create a distinctive narrative brimming with imagination.
The grains give texture to her tale, which – in good storytelling tradition – is bittersweet.
Mention must also be made of composer Sally Beamish, who previously scored the excellent No Man's Land and comes up trumps again here.
More from both of you, please.
Reviewed on: 09 Feb 2007