'The Flying Sailor' Uncovers the Beauty of History's Most Devastating Non-Nuclear Explosion

The Halifax Explosion of 1917, the largest accidental non-nuclear explosion in the world, killed 1,782 people and injured approximately 9,000 others, devastating the Richmond district of Nova Scotia's capital . Hearing the extraordinary tale of a sailor who survived the disaster, flying 2 kilometers through the air before landing naked and unscathed, Oscar-nominated and Palme d'Or winner duo Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis , wondered, "What was the trip like?"

Blending 2D and 3D animation with live archival footage, “The Flying Sailor” telescopes time, extending the few seconds the titular sailor spends tumbling through the sky into a seven-minute examination of the meaning of life. existence.

“The very thought of being that guy in the sky is mind-blowing in itself, so we loved it, and then we put it aside for a long, long time,” Forbis told IndieWire, explaining how they were initially intrigued by the structure of the narrative. "You've got this nice envelope of 'It goes, then it lands,' and everything else is completely open.

“When we started, we knew we really wanted to do the movie,” she said. "But then we were like, 'Okay, what is it exactly? "And we were just shrugging and saying, 'Oh, it's about life.

"But it's true," exclaimed Tilby. "It's about life, and that became clearer to us as we went through it. It ties so strongly to 'When the Day Breaks' and, to a lesser extent, our another film, 'Wild Life,' she said, referring to the duo's first two shorts, which both won Academy Awards in 1999 and 2011. It's the thread that runs through them, that's life."

"That was the starting point," Forbis said. "We wanted to take that section of 'Quand le jour se lève' and make it the meat of this movie."

"The Flying Sailor"

Courtesy of the NFB

"The Flying Sailor" opens with a painterly 2D sequence of a fish swimming in the sea, then dissolves into a casual scene of a bustling harbor rendered in 2D and 3D animation repainted in a cartoon style classic. Two ships are on a collision course, one of them piling upside down...