My Dad (2014)

Ok, cards on the table. This reminded me of that “Nizlopi” song about the JCB. Remember it? It’s about an adoring young lad who rides every day with his dad and relishes each journey. Here, there is no tractor but still a dad who picks his son up from school then it’s either the barbers or a game of football in the park before he goes home for his bangers and mash, or a fish supper on a Friday. What’s clear is that his father isn’t maybe as broad-minded as we might have liked, and so as the lad grows to manhood he becomes a chip off the old block, and it’s not an old block of which he might want to be proud. Though the story does play to Eng-er-land stereotypes of sexism and racism, I think that the vibrant and varied styles of the animation - mixed with genuine looking newspaper headlines, actually managed to turn these more odious features in on themselves. We are shown how nationalism can hijack elements from the flag to the sausage and even God Save the Queen and take them from more universally communal assets into something altogether more weaponised. Of course, when all seen through the eyes of a child there can be no scrutiny or questioning: so does the apple fall far from the tree and what responsibilities lie with the tree to ensure that when it does it is an improvement on what went before? It asks quite a few provocative questions and the breakneck speed of the artwork does much to help this present us with some stark (ok, perhaps simplistic too) realities. Worth five minutes.