The Flying Sailor is an animated short film (8 minutes) directed by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, and produced by the National Film Board of Canada.
It is based on a Real Life tragic accident, the Halifax Explosion
of December 6, 1917. Two cargo ships, the SS Mont-Blanc and the SS Imo, collided in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, the Mont-Blanc was carrying a cargo of high explosives. The Mont-Blanc caught fire and exploded, in what was at that time the biggest man-made explosion in history. The entire neighborhood was destroyed and nearly 1800 people were killed.
The film tells the story of a sailor, Charlie Mayers. Mayers was watching the ships and the fire when the Mont-Blanc exploded and he was thrown into the air. The film stretches the few seconds in which Mayers was flying through the air into nearly the whole cartoon, as Charlie goes on a dreamlike, surreal journey through time and space while his life flashes before his eyes.
Tropes:
- Artistic License – History: Accounts of the story of Third Officer Charles Mayers say that he was on the deck of his ship, the Middleton Castle, when he was blasted into the air by the explosion, and that he was thrown something between 800m and 1 km. This film has him on the boardwalk, and thrown two kilometers.
- Based on a True Story: The Real Life Halifax explosion, and how a sailor was thrown into the air by the force of the blast and flew something like two kilometers, and survived. The film has a chyron that says "A True Story".
- Blade-of-Grass Cut: A live-action shot of a bee pollinating a flower represents one of Charlie's childhood memories.
- Clothing Damage: A non-fanservice example, as a heavyset sailor has all his clothes blasted off him as he's thrown into the air by a massive explosion. (In Real Life, when Charlie Mayers came to he was wearing nothing but his boots.)
- False Camera Effects: The moment of the explosion is shown in a rapid montage that includes quick shots showing a flying camera and damaged film.
- Go into the Light: The camera leaves Earth, going from Charlie flying in the air to deep space. A flesh-colored ball that is meant to suggest Charlie heads for a spiral galaxy, eventually plunging into a ball of fire in the center—but of course Charlie didn't actually die, so he's then shown zooming back to Nova Scotia.
- Match Cut: Charlie, on the boardwalk, strikes a match to light his cigarette. Cut to a fire breaking out on the Mont-Blanc in the harbor.
- Medium Blending: There are some live-action clips used to suggest moments as Charlie's life flashes before his eyes, like a shot of a kitten running around in a field, or a shot of an ocean wave.
- My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: As Charlie goes flying through the air, his life flashes before his eyes in a series of clips: memories of his mom, memories of him as a boy playing in a field, memories of Charlie as sailor getting into a fight with another sailor, and more.
- Naked People Are Funny: It's played for wry comedy as the sailor is shown flying through the air in the nude after his clothes were blasted off him.
- Scare Chord: Jaunty, peppy music suggesting a sea shanty is suddenly interrupted by a scare chord when the cartoon shows that the Mont-Blanc is carrying a whole bunch of explosives.
- Silence Is Golden: No dialogue in the cartoon.
- Water Is Air: The whimsical ending finds a dazed fish lying on the harbor bottom, gasping—and then shows Charlie lying next to the fish, gasping in the same way. And his cigarette is still clamped between his teeth, and still burning.
