Feral
Feral
| 01 April 2013 (USA)
Feral Trailers

A wild boy is found in the woods by a solitary hunter and brought back to civilization. Alienated by a strange new environment, the boy tries to adapt by using the same strategies that kept him safe in the forest.

Reviews
Bergorks

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

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Beulah Bram

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

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Janis

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

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Staci Frederick

Blistering performances.

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Kirpianuscus

yes, it is the wrong word. because it is touching, impressive, delicate, bitter. for me, the expected animation who has as the essence the poetry of dream. a film great for its simplicity. and for the inspired translation in image of the fight between human and animal instinct. so, a must see. for reflect. about the basic details who are essence of our humanity.

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Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)

"Feral" is an animated short film from 3 years ago. It runs for 12 minutes and managed an Academy Award nomination. It is probably my favorite from the nominees, but that is not because I think this is a must-see, but because it really was a weak set of nominees including the winner "Mr Hublot". Feral definitely delivers in terms of the animation style. It is certainly not for everybody, but I liked it. The way they used all these shades of gray made it look truly artistic. And I also liked the inclusion of color near the ending when the protagonist reunited with nature. What I did not like that much was the story. It's a bit of "Jungle Book" and "Nell", but there is nothing really new or refreshing about this one sadly. It's a tale of isolation and integration when a boy is picked up in the jungle by a hunter. The boy adapted to nature and basically lived like an animal. The transformation scene around minute 9 is maybe the only really good moment from this short film and that is also more due to the animation than to the story. I would have been fine with this one getting the Oscar. Beautiful to watch and I recommend it. Lets see what the next projects by Daniel Souse will look like.

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Robert Reynolds

This short was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be spoilers ahead:This is a visually beautiful and haunting short, told with no dialog. The basic premise, that a feral boy is found by a hunter and returned to civilization, is deceptively simple.The fact is, when you find a child who has essentially lived as a wild animal for a sizable portion of his life, it is shortsighted at best to think, as the adults in the film clearly do, that merely cutting his hair and dressing him as a "proper" boy dresses makes him a boy. For starters, he has absolutely no idea what the culturally instilled modes of behavior are for a human child.He still has the instincts of a feral animal and those will take years to break down and replace with the behaviors installed by years of being raised in the social settings of human societies. That's what this short is about.It has precious little to do with "freedom", as the boy was no more "free" in the wild that he is in "civilization". He just trades the norms he became accustomed to in the wild, which will sooner later mean a relatively early demise (he very nearly dies before the hunter finds him) for the norms of human society. He's in a cage either way, he just traded a cage he's comfortable with for one which is strange and terrifying.An excellent short which is available for download for a reasonable cost and is well worth tracking down. Most highly recommended.

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boblipton

FERAL is a nominee for the Best Animated Short for the awards issued in 2014 and while the beauty of its bleak and spare art is certainly moving, there is an overwhelming pomposity to its construction.To tell a story about the overwhelming need to be free in a branch of movie-making which is the most nearly controlled of its genres, in a form in which, if the producer be dissatisfied with a performance, he can rip the actor up, is nothing short of bizarre. Every sequence, every frame, every jeer of a child's voice is added and modified at the insistence of the creator. It calls attention to its own artificiality even while decrying it. This short is, as I have said, quite beautiful, but it lacks that most essential craft in the composition of such a didactic story: the art that conceals art.

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