Luxo Jr.

One of the things that I love the most about the short animation Luxo Jr is that it has so much character without actually having any dialogue or a main story line. The story comes alive with the actions of the characters, the sound effects and music. When I first watched the short animation, I was quite young and didn't actually realise the short film had a title, but when watching it, I knew that it was a 'family' relationship between the two characters, the larger lamp and the smaller one. I knew the smaller one was the child because of the way it was acting, and the larger lamp was either a parent or older sibling, just because of the way they were similar in appearance. The film illustrates a particular sense of stability because it never actually leaves the one shot and the audience is always drawn to the larger lamp, but when the smaller lamp comes into the frame, it’s only for a brief second and then it leaves. What this does is add humour and allows the audience to establish the relationship of the two characters based on their reactions to each other. The way the characters move and react to each other is similar to the way humans would move and react to each other, and that is what draws us close to this short film. It takes something that wouldn't normally have 'life' and brings personality into it. It also has such a strong deeper story in terms of 'the child' and 'the parental figure' that illustrates the heart of the film. The film connects to such a wide audience, children and adults alike with that humour and sense of life that everyone can connect to. Whether it was the intention of the creators, they definitely created something that is quite hard to forget, even though it may only be a short film, the heart and message it conveys without any dialogue is what sticks to audiences.