L'homme qui plantait des arbres

"The man who planted trees" I have to agree with Meara O'Reilly and her recent post at Boing Boing on the fabulous perfection of Frédéric Back's animation - hand drawn, painstaking sublime realism. This marvelous, truly marvelous animation style cannot be duplicated with our more modern approach. Like a continuous shift of pastels you can almost feel Back's hand drawing as the scenes unfold- to me a breathtaking example of animation. See for yourselves.. in 1987, he won his second Academy Award for Animated Short Film for this work


Here are the second and third sections to this animation.. Although you can just click though at the end of the first section inside the youtube frame. The story feels like a parable to me, one that is still vibrant with truth today. Not much to say, just let the story, the narration and the animation sweep you away. Brilliant.