The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Lion
2009 · 8m · United Kingdom
Directed by Alois Di Leo
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
In 1960s England, Max, a deaf seven-year-old, goes on a school trip to the zoo and comes face to face with a lion, believing he has found a kindred spirit; but the wild world he longs to belong to proves no more welcoming than his own.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a competent coming-of-age parable, sure, but the metaphor of the deaf boy and the lion is so literalized it collapses under its own earnestness—Di Leo doesn't trust the premise enough to let it breathe into something truly strange.
Di Leo positions himself within a careful lineage of animated fables about otherness and belonging, executing with genuine formal control and a restraint that recalls the quieter British animation traditions of the period.
The choice to animate Max's silence—the specific rhythmic gaps in sound design and movement that make his deafness felt rather than explained—is what elevates this from worthy premise into something that actually lands in the chest.
Reviews
L’habit ne fait pas le moine Alois Di Leo, sorti tout récemment de l’école anglaise The National Film and Television School (NFTS), signe un film d’animation prometteur « The boy who wanted to be a lion ». Sélectionné à Cannes à la Semaine de la Critique, ce court métrage de huit minutes nous entra