Tomorrow

A young boy and his new found friend must face down the wrath of an angry shopkeeper in order to acquire some much needed medicine.

In writer/director Aryasb Feiz’s short film animation, Tomorrow, we meet an unnamed young boy as he travels the streets of the city. We find out in the opening shots of the film that he is a thief, stealing from a street cart as he cuts about his business and finds somewhere to loiter. The boy’s favourite perch is by a tree which looks onto a small road containing an antique shop. He witnesses a small exchange between the owner and a customer and has an idea, however, the purloined food which he still has in his hands has now earned him a new furry companion.

Distracting the dog with the food, the young boy heads into the antique store for a little light robbery. He seems to know where the stash is hidden and heads straight for the small ampoules of liquid stored on the underside of the chair. It’s no surprise that the burly shopkeeper catches him and gives him what for, but then the boy’s new friend comes along to help save the day. The two of them run away home, until the boy gives the poor dog the slip and it has to use its nose to find him again. Once they are reunited, we find out what the whole commotion was about and we see that the boy’s father needs the medicine to stay alive.

Sadly, one ampoule only gives relief for a day and the next morning the young boy is back outside the antique shop looking for a way to get in and get some more medicine. This constant worry of only having enough for today, and needing to keep repeating the cycle in order to survive, is what leads Feiz to ask the question – What about Tomorrow?

Throughout the story there’s a lot of minor threat and a smattering of intrigue, with the medicine not always being in the same place and the dog getting caught in the basement and other comic capers going on. The animation itself is cutesy and endearing, helping to invest the viewer in the relationship between the boy and the dog, with there being shades of Dug from Up (2009) coming through as well as a ‘Disneyfied’ feel to the whole film. However, there’s a lot to be played for going on in the background, and the sombre yet beautiful music from Fereydoun Bahrami keeps the tone of the film where it needs to be.

There’s plenty to enjoy as the narrative runs through the scenario, but strangely it never feels as though we’re getting anywhere. Despite there being three storywriters involved with the project, it seems that neither of them got around to introducing a theme or a moral or a message to the film. There’s the odd situation that an antique dealer seems to have a stranglehold on the supply of medicine instead of chemists or clinics or hospitals, and it’s unclear by the end of the film whether we should be on the boy’s side or not, as he is an obvious thief.

Getting a message across is also hindered by Feiz’s decision to film without any dialogue. What must have been a conscious choice to try and save the universality of the film, has ended up costing the filmmakers in terms of truly delivering what they wanted to say. There is so much muddied in with the story of Tomorrow that it seems Feiz and his friends forgot to take a stance. There’s nothing else there apart from the immediate storyline and by the end of the film everything is back to square one. Whilst this may in fact be Feiz’s main idea, nothing has been learnt upon the way, and the reoccurrence of every Tomorrow is only because nobody moves on – so what’s the point?

As it stands though, the one-time story from Tomorrow is fun while it lasts and the immediate relationship between the dog and the boy is entertaining enough for the seventeen minutes that we’re watching for. If some of the action wasn’t so obviously violent, and the guiding principle was better expressed, Tomorrow looks as though it could be an intro animation shown before a Disney feature film. However, there needs to be more underneath the story to really give this animation something worth talking about.