Wrapped in 3L: Uncovering Meaning in “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse” by Charlie Mackesy | A Personal Film Analysis
Hello, everyone. It’s Amiq, the writer here. So, I’ve watched this film recently and I just want to write something about it. This essay is purely coming out from my personal opinion, so, perhaps this is kind of an experience review here. Hope you enjoy it.
As expected from the Best Animated Short Film given by the 95th Academy Awards, this 34 minutes animated short movie holds relatable messages and made me burst in tears a lot of watching it for the first time. “The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse” was firstly appeared to public as a graphic novel, and then Apple TV Plus released it as a short movie. This movie is about a little boy who was lost in the midst of snowfield, then he met a mole, a fox, and a horse along his journey and befriends with them. I was expecting that this short film would be filled by sadness and gloomy vibe, observing from its trailer, but never imagining I would be fed up by the quotable dialogues in almost every scene and the deep meaning that left me quiet on contemplating. By the end of the video, I’d found these three points or meanings that I conclude what this movie perhaps wants to tell us about: lost, loneliness, and love, the three Ls.
The first idea that this short film is trying to portray is about lost. This short movie basically started its story showing a little boy who met a mole and stated that he was lost. The boy was trying to find home. And then the mole accompanied him and had a conversation with him. It was poetic yet realistic when the boy and the mole having conversation about how home looked like, what the boy wanted to be when he grew up, like about their dreams. As a real situation in our everyday life, in the middle of the journey when we feel lot like we are lost, we keep having these kinds of thoughts. The mole here was so wise yet so innocent. He opened a wider perspective to the boy to explore his own mind and gave him some advices as well. The interesting part is that after some while, the mole said that he was also lost, so were they all, but they had a plan to do next, which means they kept going on the journey even though they faced some challenges. The ‘lost’ meaning is captured and felt in scene by scene, the way this short movie wants to begin everything.
After depicting into the show about lost, this film conveys much about loneliness. It is practically shown in every character here. The boy who got lost and tried to find a way to home, the mole who suddenly appeared out of nowhere by himself, the fox who then followed their journey quietly without any speak at all, and the horse who was an outcast because he had a special ability than other normal horses. The winter as the setting of place in this film is also so appropriate, as it is something that brings coldness, adding more terrifying feeling into the movie. Not only feel lonely because not to be surrounded by their own families, but feel lonely more of themselves, of their souls. The long journey that is the main thing of this short movie, if we can reflect, it is like human’s journey to reach any purposes of their life. And in the way for reaching to that place, our hearts are often cloaked in fear and loneliness. As should that the light comes after the hardships and the darkness, despite all that loneliness and gloomy feeling, the boy, the mole, the fox, and the horse learned that they were together on that journey, which is making our way to the third meaning in this movie: love.
Love, as the last meaning that I find appealing in this short film, essentially is the biggest one here. Along the boy and his friends’ journey, they understood and loved each other just as they were. When a big storm came into the forest, all was dark and hopeless, but they gathered together, warmed up each other by hugs. The storm here also clearly represents a great problem that we, human, always face in our days. I noticed that the sayings about love, especially in this context is to love ourselves, was shown pretty often. “You are loved, you are enough,” there’s couple of times this sentence is repeated on the screen, as like a reminder to all of us about how important we are and how loved we are. At the end of the story, when the boy finally found his “look-like” home, he briefly hesitated and returned to the friends he made on his journey. By love, the mole, the fox, the horse, and the boy became a home to each other, and the boy chose his path to stay with them. This segment was closed with the quote said by the boy, “A home doesn’t have to be a place, right?” Love, as always be it is, in this movie becomes the big power that shows directions, solves any pessimistic feeling, and a way to find the right home.
“The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse” is a heartwarming and cozy visual art. By including lost, loneliness, and putting love into it, this movie delivers its message about what is happening in our real life, our growth as a human, as a part of this world. The decision to choose a kid and animals as characters here illustrates the innocence and the sincerity in life, which is actually the most important one that we, humans, as we grow up, often forget about. This short film reminds us of the journey to find home, the thing that we all search for in life, and to awaken the thing that is most precious for us, where our soul is truly headed.
