{"id":13495,"date":"2017-02-14T12:08:43","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T20:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=13495"},"modified":"2017-02-26T22:33:23","modified_gmt":"2017-02-27T06:33:23","slug":"my-life-as-a-zucchini-much-more-than-a-childrens-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/02\/14\/my-life-as-a-zucchini-much-more-than-a-childrens-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Film Fest review: My Life as a Zucchini<\/em> much more than a children\u2019s movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Life as a Zucchini
\n<\/em>4\/5<\/p>\n

As far as touching pieces of filmmaking go, My Life as a Zucchini <\/em>(2016) is rather well done, using its medium (stop-motion animation) and its runtime (66 minutes) to create something moving and out of the ordinary for a sort-of-children\u2019s flick.<\/p>\n

Really, to call My Life as a Zucchini <\/em>a children\u2019s film at all is as patronizing as it is untrue\u2014children\u2019s films are generally brainless and harmless, and have no illusions of doing anything besides giving tired parents a break. But children deserve films like this one, which doesn\u2019t insult their intelligence or assume that because they\u2019re young they can\u2019t handle any emotions or ideas more complex than \u201cwheee\u201d or \u201chooray.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
My Life as a Zucchini<\/em> is more than it appears to be (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The film\u2019s stop-motion animation serves to capture certain simplicities of childhood by creating a world which, visually, is simple and uncluttered, while also keeping the story engaging and guiding it away from bleakness (which the subject matter could have guided it toward) and the saccharine storytelling that many live-action children-fronted films are guilty of.<\/p>\n

The film surprises throughout by never shying away from tricky topics, and, in fact, looks at things like death, racism, sex, and violence\u2014topics that shoddy children\u2019s films avoid like the plague\u2014in the same wide-eyed, unfiltered way a child might.<\/p>\n

Perhaps its story is a tad familiar, but each step of its trajectory is told with such a refreshing, and at times delightfully inventive, perspective that it is never hackneyed or clich\u00e9d.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the concise runtime ensures that no moment in the film is belaboured or dull\u2014everything counts\u2014and because of that, the aforementioned familiarity never has time to sink in, the audience isn\u2019t given the chance to remember where they\u2019ve seen it before.<\/p>\n

That said, the film is in no way trying to be something it\u2019s not\u2014it\u2019s an assured piece of filmmaking with its own ideas and perspectives, and avoids many of the pitfalls that its peers do not.<\/p>\n

My Life as a Zucchini <\/em>stands as a testament to what children\u2019s films can and should be, while, moreover, demonstrating what it is about films that we all gravitate toward\u2014that semi-intangible need to be told stories that make us feel, children and adults alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Life as a Zucchini 4\/5 As far as touching pieces of filmmaking go, My Life as a Zucchini (2016) is rather well done, using its medium (stop-motion animation) and its runtime (66 minutes) to create something moving and out of the ordinary for a sort-of-children\u2019s flick. Really, to call My Life as a Zucchini […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13495"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13519,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495\/revisions\/13519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}