English films from right after the war particularly those from Ealing or Archers are a pretty interesting pocket to mine. Its a strange mix of experiments of all types. There's no predictability, no massive copying. Its as if everything is reset in a cultural medium and tastes need to be rediscovered or even reinvented.
This story as two elements. One is a story about a boy in a boy's clever world of invention and exploration. That's the bits you are meant to see. The other is overtly symbolic: his father is a clinical psychologist who has a need to "explain things." The story is about the hunger of certain stories, one would almost say the attraction or magnetism of stories, and that can be the only reason why the possession that triggers the story-story is a magnet.
What happens here is an ordinary episode triggers several fantastic stories, all of them with lives of their own as they adapt to live and propagate. There's extreme attention to symbols as if it were written by the psychologist: iron lungs, remote alarms, "secret" sign language, an invisible watch.
The story itself has minor charms. Its the loading of the overt symbols that is the fun part, especially since the writer seems to be poking fun at the notion of symbols the whole time.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
