Lucia is an animation by German filmmaker Felix Gonnert, I was fortunate enough to see it in Italy at MIFED where it had won an award as one of the best European films by a young director this year, it met with an extremely warm reception and was probably one of the most liked films there, by both filmmakers and public, and absolutely deservedly so.
We meet a very young girl in a hospital bed; she has an unspecified problem with her head; seeing the world mostly through her eyes we never learn exactly what the problem is, it's simply the reason she is in hospital. Lucia is clearly a little overwhelmed by the place, and confused and scared by her illness. One night she wakes up and embarks on a midnight adventure through the silent corridors, she sees a goldfish in a bowl in one of the offices and investigates further, fascinated by a set of X rays on the lightbox. Looking at the X-rays she begins to dream, and finds herself wandering in a misty dream world, with a strange angel like creature and the goldfish for company, she goes on to gain an understanding for her illness, and most importantly she discovers hope and loses her fear of the hospital and doctors.
This sweet little story is told without any dialogue, we have just the animation and the sound to tell the story and both are incredibly successful. Felix's animation is beautifully rendered 3D CGI perfection, imagine Tim Burton launching a hostile takeover of Pixar and you get some idea of what I'm talking about, the choice of shots, the lighting, the sound and characters are all just right, the pace is calm and measured (due credit to editor Gregor White), the storytelling subtle and simple; all round there is simply no criticism to make, it's as close to perfection as you're ever likely to get,
Undeniably the simplicity and subtlety won't be to everyone's taste, but from a personal perspective I think I could watch this film a hundred times and still delight in it, as it is I must have seen it some 20 times already and it's still beautiful, and there's no other option when you like something that much; 5 little guys.
