Paperman

A couple of days ago, Disney uploaded the entirety of their new Oscar-nominated animated short Paperman, which opened screenings of the feature-length Wreck-It Ralph. It is a beautiful six and a half minutes about a chance connection between two office workers with a little swelling Disney magic thrown in by the end. It’s interesting to note that that the impressive 2D style is actually the result of 3D modelling.

The first half of the story may seem rather familiar to long time readers who will have seen the utterly charming live action short Signs — about a similar connection between two office workers in opposite buildings — when I mentioned it a few years back. I am evidently not the only one to make the connection with the video generating a great deal of traffic over the past few days, along with some unwarranted criticism of Paperman for likely taking a little inspiration from it.

Watching the two on my way into work yesterday (other than providing a surprisingly positive boost to my morning) made me realise that, whilst I have developed an ingrained aversion to genre labels, perhaps my favourite genre of films is best described as “Connection”. It’s different to romantic drama or comedy in that there is no reason the connection need be romantic or even limited to humans. The nebulous connection between Bob and Charlotte in Lost in Translation is precisely what I love about the film, whilst the bond that forms gradually, uncertainly between Hiccup and Toothless in How To Train Your Dragon is both stronger and more nuanced than most romcoms I have seen.

The corollary to this sadly unrecognised genre would be the “disconnection” or “failed connections” found in films like Blue Valentine, Le Mepris and even Casablanca as couples’ lives together fragment or as people simply slide past one another without ever quite achieving their collision, planets forever in parallel orbits.

It makes me wonder what other potential genres might exist beyond the standard ones into which we try (and fail) to separate our media entertainment.