In the Center Ring
1974 · 1m · Canada
Directed by Lynn Smith
Tones: theatrical, whimsical
In a very short anti-smoking animation, two children in a circus center ring prove more courageous than the other performers around them.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 1974 NFB PSA about kids being brave—sounds like exactly the kind of earnest, well-meaning thing I'd normally skip, but there's something genuinely weird about using circus spectacle and child heroism to sell anti-smoking rhetoric that makes it actually *strange* in a way the filmmaker probably didn't intend.
Lynn Smith's command of theatrical space and whimsy within the constraints of formal animation betrays real sophistication; this sits comfortably in the NFB's tradition of moral fables that achieve their weight through compositional clarity and tonal control rather than sentiment.
The entire film hinges on the choice to stage moral courage *inside* a circus ring—that single decision to use performance and spectacle as the frame transforms what could've been a generic PSA into something with actual visual wit and architectural purpose.