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A super-short film about creativity has inspired me, and it will inspire you, too.
This is so good. If you need to cry today, or have a transcendent experience, hang with me for a few.
The short film Alike had been on my radar for a while, but I finally took the 7 and a half minutes or so that were needed to watch it and I wish I’d done it sooner.
I know just saying that is probably not enough to get you to watch it, but I really feel like it is such a must-see for parents, for creative people, for people who work and feel like they are too busy to do whatever creative thing it is they want to do.
For everyone, really.
About the Film
This computer-animated short produced in Spain (it was actually made in 2015 and has won a ton of awards) has no words, but it is so moving I actually cried watching it.
It tells the story of a man and his child who are alike in that the worlds they are crammed into during the day — mind-numbing work and regimented, fill-out-the-worksheets school — drag them down and make them unhappy, here illustrated as losing their color.
Everyone else in this world lacks color, except for the man who plays the violin under the tree.
It is so sweet to see the man’s color come back when he hugs his child at the end of the day, because that’s how it feels some days.
But over time the child loses its color, too, and the man has to help him get it back.
On Living the Creative Life
This film can be taken as a warning against the grind of most people’s work life, the dangers of modern public education and the isolation of big cities, but I think it’s more than that.
It is about how creativity is essential to our lives.
It’s the thing that brings the color, quite literally.
No matter how busy we feel or how dragged down by life we are, we need to make things.
That’s what it’s all about, really.
Creativity is the juice of life. It’s the thing that makes everything else OK.
Alike and Parenting
It’s also a film about parenting, and how we can make things better for our kids by not emphasizing the worksheets, by praising their creative projects and by making things and having a sense of adventure and play with them.
While it’s easy to think that getting good grades or doing well in school is the most important thing, we’re raising kids to be good and happy people, not just people who can fit into the strictures of society.
Or at least we should be.
To me this little film is a call to action, to be more creative myself and with my kid, and to encourage creativity in all its forms among all the people I can.
Funny, that’s really what this blog is supposed to be all about.
What are you creating? Do you identify with the idea that making things adds color to your life? I hope you’ll watch the film and share your thoughts!
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