Bradford Animation Festival: The Boxtrolls

Whilst at the Bradford Animation Festival I got the chance to watch the stop motion animation The Boxtrolls (which was a treat by the way). First off, the entire aesthetic of the film is just beautiful. I really loved the atmospheres throughout the film and the whole style of the animation, you could really see that so much time, love and effort went into creating each and every one of the beautifully crafted puppets and sets.

Stop motion animation is something that I have always been interested in and is one of the reasons I first became interested in animation, so it was really nice to see another amazing piece of stop motion being so successful. It was also nice to be reminded of what can actually be achieved with stop motion animation. 

However, these aren't the only reasons I find The Boxtrolls so fascinating to watch. Personally, I feel that the film demonstrates great use of appeal. Despite the fact that the Boxtrolls themselves are actually quite ugly little things in reality, I couldn't help but fall in love with them more than the main protagonist. Laika have managed to create appeal through the characters personalities and I find that they have done a really good job at giving each character their own personality, which also helps the audience to feel a stronger connection to them. Another reason I enjoyed this film was because of the aesthetic, I really liked that grungy, dingy feel everything seemed to have and I found the underground area where the Boxtrolls lived to be the most interesting environment within the film simply because of the imagination used within the space. 

Overall, I feel that The Boxtrolls is a beautifully crafted film that is really enjoyable to watch and demonstrates a great use of stop motion animation.