The action weaves in and out of fantasy and reality, and time is elastic, reminding a complex and marvelously mysterious modern painting. Boy and the World deserves to be studied as well as enjoyed by all serious animators. Animators are shamans, and this movie is shamanistic in a most seductive way. Much of the acting in the movie works because of status negotiations. Boy and the World is told from a child's POV, featuring a simple farm boy searching for his father in an industrialized and hostile world. To a seven-year-old, the entire world is high status, and he acts accordingly in order to survive. Acting has almost nothing to do with words, an acting principle on bold display in Boy and the World. Acting-wise, his objective could not be clearer, and his action in pursuit of that objective is to physically try to restrain the man from leaving.