When asked about the main and obsessive themes in his books, Chuck Palahniuk replied: ”My books are always about somebody who is taken from aloneness and isolation - often elevated loneliness - to community. It may be a denigrated community that is filthy and poor, but they are not alone; they are with people.” Any kind of community, for Palahniuk, is better than no community, every kind of interaction is to a certain point good for the individual, keeping them on board when it comes to mental stability, and integrating them in a community in which they can evolve as a contributive part. In '5476 miles', Terry Thomas extracts this general idea of loneliness from the people and inserts it in the animal world, where the consequences of estrangement are as bad as in our situation.
The plot is based on a slightly philosophical matter, where the individual (taken as a concept), here a starling, goes from the depths of the sky to the bottom of the ocean in the search of its peace of mind. We are big fans of stop motion animation, and this particular one caught our attention from the very first second. Why? Well, because the combination of visuals and soundtrack was absolutely breathtaking, and the plot was a pure short story that had the great luck of being sung rather than written. Whilst singing this song, Nigel Thomas has that grungy yet melodic voice, the voice dreams are made of. We perceived it as a perfect blend of Layne Staley’s vocal cuts and Bon Iver’s deep inside messages.
In this day and age, loneliness and depression are two of the most common problems known to the world, and it is hard to fight them without help. But one way of counter attacking these states is to have a positive mindset, and '5476 miles' is the kind of short film that helps one having an uplifting state of mind for the whole day, with minimal time investment.
Written by Vlad A. G