Critic Reviews

Away is as unique as it is lovely.

Somewhere between Hayao Miyazaki and Terrence Malick lies Away, a gorgeously made minimalist cartoon that’s long on beauty and breathtaking scenery, if somewhat short on traditional narrative.

For those with the opportunity to see Away in a theater, the experience will either mesmerize or annoy, as the project feels like a promising first pass — a rough-rendered showcase of Zilbalodis’ myriad gifts, which are better suited to world-building and scenic design than character animation.

Away combines Zilbalodis’ signature minimalist style with the structure of a classic survival story.

Not a word is spoken throughout, which harkens back to an older era of cinematic storytelling. At the same time, the extreme frame-to-frame fluidity of the computer-assisted animation style, composed entirely of fields of subtly modulated colour, no outlines and minimal modelling, looks completely 21st century.

Away has the mild rush of a coming-of-age dream, the sort that lodges in your memory as symbolic and significant as you pass from one stage of life to the next.

Zilbalodis’ storytelling is intriguing but oblique.