The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
2011 · 15m · Estados Unidos
Directed by Brandon Oldenburg, William Joyce
Genres: animation, family, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
Inspired by Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz and a love of books, this is a story about people who devote their lives to reading and the benefits they gain from it.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a love letter to books wrapped in Keaton pastiche—treacly on first read, but the film's aware enough of its own sentimentality that it almost becomes subversive; almost. The whimsy never quite tips into the genuinely weird territory where I'd be fully convinced.
A formally assured piece that knows exactly what lineage it's standing in—Keaton's physical comedy, the dreamlogic of Oz—and executes that conversation with real discipline; the animation serves the emotional architecture rather than overwhelm it, which is rarer than it should be.
The decision to let the books themselves become the emotional throughline, moving through the frame as characters rather than props, is what makes this work—it's a single formal choice that transforms a genteel premise into something genuinely affecting.