Animation has the capacity to deliver some very heartfelt and emotionally resonating visuals. With it’s penchant for exaggerated movement, it simplifies a characters emotional motivations to their core visual aesthetics. As such, sadness is made to feel all the more sad, and happiness all the more joyful. Such emotional highs and lows are ever-present in this week’s short, Lost Property, directed by Åsa Lucander. The story, a man who runs a lost and found shop has a daily visit from an elderly woman looking for a new lost item, is wrought with emotional weight. Each inevitable disappointment of an item not found builds a crushing sense of mourning for items lost in the past. The conversion of such seemingly irrelevant items into the keys to memories lost in debilitating dementia is a beautiful twist on a melancholy theme.

What is striking beyond the story, is the persistent use of colour. Lost Property is a beautifully coloured animated short. The environment’s are two characters surround themselves with grow ever more fantastical as the film proceeds. This is paired with a beautiful score by David Arch and performed exceptionally by One More Music Company. Combined, these elements create a sense of uplifting whimsy, though the material remains solemn. It all creates an earnest sense of hope.

This is a lovely short and I do hope you watch and enjoy.

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