The Boy Who Saw the Iceberg (2000) User Reviews

Simultaneously the most tragic and ghoulish animation you'll EVER see

[rzajac · 10/10 · 10 November 2015]

My eldest daughter and I saw this at an animation fest in Taipei, Taiwan. A composer and a producer who'd worked with van Driessen were in attendance at the screening.

Subject line sez all: Easily the most horrifyingly tragic and ghoulish short animation you'll ever see, in your whole life. My daughter and I were near tears: We would've outright cried if van Driessen had allowed some aesthetic distancing... but no: He insisted on pushing the awfulness of the scenario to such a pitch that you could only sit in frozen horror.

Kudos!

I asked the producer what van Driessen was like as a person. I was already pretty well-aware of his dark imagination. She said... He's such a nice guy! He remembers your birthday, and everything!

Brilliant!

[jul_g · 10/10 · 21 July 2001]

This animation was stunningly presented with a split-screen effect. I won't give any details so as not to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it. Kind of film noir - there were many times when my laughter just caught in my throat...The ending was very powerful. Definitely worth seeing.

Interesting idea, forgettable execution

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 21 September 2015]

"The Boy Who Saw the Iceberg" is an 8-minute short film produced by the legendary NFB, so it is a Canadian production, also has an English title of course, even if the writer and director Paul Driessen is Dutch. This little animated movie here came out the very same year that Driessen scored his so far only Academy Award nomination. He was roughly 60 15 years ago and had already made films for 3 decades. Unfortunately, I must say that this one here does not make me curious about his other works. The split-screen idea is interesting, but I felt the action drifts so far apart and differs so much that it was over the top in my mind. Maybe it would have been better to show how slightly different reactions in certain situations would have caused entirely different result. The way it was handled here, it's basically 2 films in 1 and fairly difficult to understand exactly what is going on at the same time on both sides. The animation doesn't help either. Certainly not a style I love. All in all, I do not recommend this one here.