As you pop on your tie this evening, button up your suit and lock your briefcase; do you look in the reflection and see an adult? Or is there the remnants of a child winking back at you? Will you drudge dearly to that job you hate so much, or will you skip with your innocence on the wind? That’s the big message of Bosmat Agayoff & Alon Ziv’s extremely sentimental and technologically stunning piece, Reflections.
Reflections focuses on Barnie who spends most of his days chasing the reflection of his former self around the streets, much to the disgust of those suited and booted around him. When he bumps into one of them on the street, he finds himself surrounded by those urging him to join the masses of the drove of workers. Can Barnie resist or will he give in to those growing pains?
Agayoff and Ziv provide what can only be described as an earnest and accurate portrayal of what it is like to be in your mid-twenties. Because on one hand all you want to do is play, loll abut in the sun and find rainbows with promises of gold at the end of them. But around you, everyone is conforming to a payroll; a system where pain rains down and so does tedium. Told through computer animation, made to look hand-drawn, this quirky and determined piece has this utterly strong message throughout a (yes, it is) student film.
Captivating, this is a classic filmmaking with a flare. The hazy and different feel of the movie only adds to the sentiments the tale is trying to portray. More importantly, at one point in our life we were Barnie; forced to stop looking back and conforming to a world of dreariness. The only important question to ask yourself is whether or not you chose to go forward, or remember your inner child; pulling faces in shop windows or skipping down the streets.