SHAUN THE SHEEP: A Silent Movie As Good As The Classics

There is no formula for making a perfect kids film, yet studios have set up entire animated devisions that churn out movies under the tried-and-tested “jokes for the parents and jokes for the kids” formula. The twin assumptions that filmmakers don’t feel children are sophisticated enough to understand certain jokes in a movie tailor-made for them and that parents also need to be pandered to in order for them to enjoy the film are relatively new.

After all, back in the early days of silent cinema, most movies were experiences for the entire family, with everybody (no matter how young or old) being catered to equally. Yet now we live in a time where few kids movies (a term I should stop using – these are films with an intended audience of children, not exclusively for them) get the “something for everyone” rule right that made cinema such a great experience for the whole family in the first place.

Some, like Shark Tale or Wes Anderson’s vastly overrated Fantastic Mr Fox, forget that they are even kids films, relying exclusively on a comedic sensibility only adults will understand, if not enjoy. Others, like the recent Dreamworks offering Home, focus exclusively on entertaining children, ensuring that anybody outside of elementary school age will have nothing to enjoy.

The Shaun the Sheep Movie, the fantastic new feature from Aardman Animation Studios, should fall into this latter category. Yet with its lack of dialogue (this is a film starring sheep as the main characters after all), it actually embraces the comedic values of the earliest silent movies, ensuring that there truly is something for the adults and children in the audience can laugh at and enjoy simultaneously. It’s simple but effective, and I cant imagine anybody not being charmed by it, regardless of age.

Shaun the Sheep draws inspiration from a century of cinema

The Shaun the Sheep TV series manages to work for all ages due to the care and attention given to the stop-motion animation, as well as the fact it is the only modern series that creates slapstick comedy that doesn’t register as cringeworthy. The only change for the big screen is the running time, and with the exception of an opening flashback, doesn’t bother with character introductions. This works on two levels – either you know what the deal with the characters is anyway, or the sweet simplicity of the film ensures you will know soon enough.

Bored of the same monotonous daily schedule on the farm, Shaun the Sheep devises a plan to get him and the other farmyard sheep a day’s holiday to the big city, fooling the farmer and his sheepdog Blitzer. Immediate catastrophe strikes, in ways so ridiculous describing them won’t do them justice, leaving the farmer with amnesia in the city thinking he’s a hairdresser, the farmyard pigs using the farmhouse as a party mansion and leaving the sheep stranded in the big city trying to get the farmer back home whilst a dastardly Animal Control employee is on their trail.

Shaun the Sheep is flawless filmmaking in the fact it draws direct inspiration from the classics of cinema, from the aforementioned earliest silent efforts of Chaplin and Keaton, to a bizarre riff on Silence of the Lambs, whilst doing something new with those influences. A simple gag that references Silence of the Lambs would be a “for the parents” joke in any other film; Aardman reappropriate it in a way that makes it funny to all ages, even if it means different things to different viewers. It’s a movie that teaches the youngest children the simplest pleasures of cinema, whilst reminding older ones about the classics and leaving them with a renewed sense that although they may not make movies like they used to, directors Richard Starzak and Mark Burton aren’t ignorant of the most traditional of moviemaking techniques.

The Movie is cute- but doesn’t milk it’s cuteness

This is also one of the few movies that will overwhelm you with how unashamedly cute this is, without ever mentioning it. After having been dragged by my younger brother to watch Home recently, I found that it instead of trying to make a good movie, the filmmakers were concentrating on making the alien character OH as cutesy to young children as possible in order to shift merchandise. All the farmyard animals in Shaun the Sheep are animated in such a way that you want to reach out to the screen and give them a big cuddle, giving in to your inner child who demands you buy stuffed toys of every animal character in the movie. The reason it does this and never distracts from the movie is because all of the characters are too involved with the narrative, instead of just coasting on their adorability, as characters in lesser movies would.

I’m all for adorability (I am a fan of Frozen after all and I’m a twenty year old man), yet to cynically include characters designed in an adorable way with no real narrative purpose plainly exposes the fact filmmakers want to milk some more money from their young target audience. No character in Shaun the Sheep falls victim to this – it’s the rare modern kids film that doesn’t play out like an extended advert for brand merchandise, which makes you want brand merchandise all the more.

You could argue that in the realm of kids movies, including cute characters with nothing to do is the same as including female, ethnic minority or LGBTQ characters for the sake of diversity. It is offensive to everybody in those groups to be involved in a narrative for the sake of inclusivity, without adding anything to the narrative as a whole. Shaun the Sheep is a feature length reminder that cute characters need fully fleshed out narratives of their own too, not just register as cuddly toys you can buy from the store on your way home.

Verdict

The Shaun the Sheep movie won’t change the world, but it should act as a wake up call for any animator who sees it – to stop pandering to your audiences and concentrate on entertaining them. Aardman have long been tied with Studio Ghibli as my favourite animation studio and Shaun the Sheep is a textbook example of why. The design of the stop motion animation, the attention to detail that ensures plenty of laughs from background sight gags in future repeat viewings and above all, a warm heart that ensures you care about the characters and the narrative all add up to what seems like an unlikely choice as one of my favourite movies of the year so far.

This is more than just a simple kids film, this is a slapstick silent movie on a scale that Buster Keaton could have only dreamed of. If you see it and aren’t won over by it, then the simple joys that cinema has brought entire generations in the last century maybe aren’t for you.

Who are your favourite animation studios? Do you think Shaun the Sheep effectively pays tribute to silent cinema?

Shaun the Sheep was released in the UK earlier this year, but will be released in the US on August 7. All international release dates can be found here.

(top image source: Aardman Animation Studios)