Negative Space

A man describes his father. The father travelled constantly and was seldom at home. There was one thing he taught his son: how to pack a suitcase. How to fold clothes, how to fill the space, where each thing goes. The narrative proceeds through those details, and that becomes the only shared language between them. At the end the son stands at his father's funeral and looks into the coffin. Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter made it. The source is a poem by Ron Koertge. It was made in stop motion; every frame was arranged by hand with miniature sets and the production took years. It runs a little under five minutes. The idea is space: the empty room in a suitcase and the father's absence are described by the same word, and the last line joins the two. The design rests on miniature scale and the folding of clothes was worked frame by frame; those passages are what is most discussed. It was nominated for the Academy Award for animated short. The narrative does not slide into sentiment; the register is dry and the last line stays a single sentence. Who it is for: viewers who like short animation and stop motion. Who it is not for: it is very short, nothing happens, and it rests on a single idea.