Muscles of steel can not stop it. A brilliant mind will never outsmart it. Stone and steel are playdough in its path. It is the relentless, merciless force of Mother Nature, and we live in her house as humble, fragile guests. Try as we might to hold back rising tides, build deep roots to thwart swirling winds, and fight raging fires with geysers of water, our survival is ultimately her choice, and our fate is unpredictable.
As a young Boy Scout, filmmaker Fx Goby picked up a short story written by 19th-century writer Jackson London, whose work often centered around themes of man versus the fierceness of nature’s elements. While reading “To Build a Fire,” 12-year-old Goby, who had been trained to approach the outdoors with great skill and respect, suddenly found himself in the mind of a protagonist whose underestimations while traveling through the woods on a frigid winter’s day slowly ensured his swift demise. It’s a story that stuck with Goby and, 20 years later, his adaptation of London’s piece is today’s Staff Pick Premiere.
Goby describes, “I remember feeling extremely anxious reading it. It felt like, despite all his knowledge, a man remained entirely vulnerable when facing nature. This was also the time where I developed a taste for making movies with my friends and all I was writing was really action centered, with a lot of ketchup to replace fake blood. ‘To Build a Fire’ felt cinematic and back then I thought it could make a great film.”
Created as a commissioned work for the Boy Scouts of America, Goby’s stunning animated interpretation of London’s story employs a raw, austere style in order to focus on the “bare elements of storytelling, with no visual distractions.” Using a limited color palette of wintery whites, grays, and blues, the film’s doomed main character and his furry companion appear as round, simplistic shapes in contrast to their sharply detailed background. Unlike the original story, the short film adaptation lacks any description or dialogue to tell viewers what is going on inside the minds of the man and dog. Instead, Goby cleverly uses a detailed natural background to portray the harsh complexity of nature and utilizes non-visual elements to emphasize drama. To stress danger through sound, the London Symphony Orchestra recorded music composed by Mathieu Alvado with every detail of mood, color, and emotion in mind.
After you read Jack London’s “To Build A Fire” and watch Fx Goby’s take on its harsh lessons of man’s vulnerability in the great wide open, you’ll understand why it’s been featured in countless animation festivals across the world. We highly recommend you watch this piece in a room with a roof and four walls, a nest of blankets, a hot beverage, and a dog that never has to worry about meeting its maker in the freezing Yukon wilderness.
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