The most eloquent, enduring gift a parent can bestow upon his or her child is sparking the child's imagination and then stepping aside, letting the make-believe mesh with the day to day, opening the door to an infinite internal landscape. Street Ships, though just 18 minutes long, illustrates the power of such a gift. The film focuses on a boy and a girl, born in neighboring houses, whose backyard games later burst onto the suburban streets, which become a worthy stand-in for the high seas. The film's narrative manages to inform and gratify while wisely avoiding a preachy or maudlin tone. The score pushes the dramatization over the top, but its grandiose voluptuousness matches the limitless expanses of the child's mental playground, and follows the story where garage construction makes well-cannoned tall ships out of old cars and layered mismatched fabric and clothing becomes mighty sails and eighteenth-century pirate garb.
The short film carries at its heart not just the joy of make-believe, but the deep debt of gratitude the young man, in particular, feels toward his father, who listened and nurtured and supported his son's imagination and, viewers may assume, the lifelong dreams it spurred into reality. We experience the young man's grief at his dad's death, and we are made to feel a part of the grandly scaled reprise of the early street ship battles, a celebration of life and a thank you to the parent whose own imagination made it all possible.
The short film carries at its heart not just the joy of make-believe, but the deep debt of gratitude the young man, in particular, feels toward his father, who listened and nurtured and supported his son's imagination and, viewers may assume, the lifelong dreams it spurred into reality. We experience the young man's grief at his dad's death, and we are made to feel a part of the grandly scaled reprise of the early street ship battles, a celebration of life and a thank you to the parent whose own imagination made it all possible.