The man behind "Yellow Submarine" (which will have to be watched when I get to 1968) put out this intriguing little short six years earlier, in my big halcyon year of '62. "The Flying Man" is a movie whose structure and plot elude me, except to say that its lack of structure may be the point. The animation is visually stimulating in its childlike fluidity, even more so when left to stand on its own after the jaunty, perhaps encouraging score is abruptly dropped for most of the runtime. If you'd like a plot description, you've come to the wrong film. A man sheds his clothes and begins swimming in mid-air. A dog comes along and attacks his clothes, and the dog's owner attempts to fly but fails, and kicks the dog for his troubles. I don't know if it's a result of the print, but there are several places where the animation becomes so faint it's hard to follow, but there's an intriguing complexity in these seemingly infantile colorings, a spare implication of body leading to a wonderful economy of movement. At 2 1/2 minutes, there's not much to it, but it's a nifty little piece and a nice little bang for the buck.
{Grade: 8/10 (B)}
{Grade: 8/10 (B)}