The Pointless Forest isn’t so Pointless
The last few days has seen the Flatpack festival return to Birmingham; Flatpack is an eccentric film and animation festival – from cinematic classics to new and emerging talent. On sunday I saw The Point (1971) an animated fable from Harry Nilsson featuring music from the album of the same name. The Point is set in a world where everything and everyone has a point and is flung into a crisis when a child with no points is born, he has to conceal his pointless head with a pointed hat. The boy is accepted into the village in till one day he angers The Count’s son by beating him at a game, when the son tells The Count he brings the boy to the Kings attention. The King is forced to enforce the law and the boy, named Oblio, is banished to the Pointless Forest with his pet dog Arrow as the law states everyone must have a point. After being outcast from their village they go on a somewhat psychedelic journey through the forest and during his travels he meets many bizarre characters (undoubtably inspired by Nilsson’s acid trips.) Oblio discovers that the most trivial and pointless things sometimes are essential to existence, such as leaves on the trees. Oblio finds that just because something has a point it doesn’t always have a meaning. Oblio returns to the village and tells the King and all the people that everything has a point, even the Pointless Forest. The Count, angered by Oblio’s claims takes his pointed hat off and finds the boy has a point underneath. At the shock of the boy’s pointed head, everyones points transform to round heads. The animation was by Fred Wolf and is narrated by Dustin Hoffman (the DVD release has Ringo Starr) This film is a true visual treat and really worth seeing, I was lucky enough to see an original 16mm but I would recommend getting it on DVD. Even if its just for the music.
tuesdayblues 
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