The Box

Just watched this Oscar-winning animated short directed by Fred Wolf on YouTube as linked from Cartoon Brew. It's basically the story of an old bearded man sitting at a bar drinking with a box on the counter. First a man and then a woman have drinks with this bearded man as they try to find out what's in the box. Both times-after a few minutes-the bearded man allows each one to look in the box with neither pleased to have found out and with both leaving indignant. Then another woman arrives...Scored with just drums, The Box is an amusing animated short with an ending that may make you think if the bearded man is who one may think he is. This director Wolf (who is different from a recent former SNL writer with the same name), I've recently found out, is the same person who made those "Puff the Magic Dragon" specials with Burgess Meredith as the voice of Puff as well as the feature film The Mouse and His Child which I reviewed last fall. All of those I mentioned were pretty enjoyable and so it is with this short. So on that note, I recommend The Box.

THE BOX is a clever and diverting little film. I am NOT trying to say it was bad--it isn't. However, I am surprised that it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short, though the 1960s were not exactly a banner decade for animation. The older style cartoons with beautiful backgrounds and high cel counts were pretty much a thing of the past by 1960 and the films nominated for Oscars throughout the decade were minimalist in nature--stark or non-existent backgrounds, low cel counts (instead of 24 cels per second, most were less than half of that--resulting in less fluidity of movement).

As for THE BOX, it's a very simple film with a very simple idea. A cute but scruffy looking older man comes out of the rain and enters a bar with a small black box. A guy sits next to him and wants to see what's inside, but the man with the box isn't about to let just anyone see what he's got. The idea goes from there to include a few other patrons and it is cute though not especially memorable.

This is one of those films that allow one to speculate as to its message. A little bearded man in a rain slicker comes into a bar and puts a nondescript box on the counter. People come and go, asking him to show them what the box contains. They leave upset or displeased. I would guess because what they realize matches their personalities. Then a pretty young woman comes in and she has a similar box. This leads to a kind of understanding. This would be fun as a classroom exercise.