Wild Life (2011)

By CinemaSerf

I liked the brush-stroke style of animation here as we follow a rather naive young Englishman as he leaves the comforts of his upper-class existence and emigrates to Calgary. Now in 1909, that was little more than an hamlet but he has plenty of (parental) cash, so secures a 90-acre spread equipped with a pond and a shack. He's happy enough - though perhaps not as adventurous as he declares to his folks in his letters. With the harsh winter approaching, though, loneliness begins to set in and then... Simultaneously, we have a sequence of inter titles that describe to us something of the life of a comet. It's time near the brightness of the sun before it's journey takes it beyond the orbit of Pluto. Analogous? The narrative pokes a little fun at all things English (even the Scots get their dig in) and is quite amiable. I've only ever been into the north of Canada once - to a British Army Arctic training facility. The bitter cold and the darkness of the winter months is almost claustrophobic - and that was with double glazing and central heating. Brrr!