The Sound Collector (1982)

There’s something quite unnerving about the almost double-jointed style of creature animation here, but the story is quite good fun. With the rain pouring down outside, the young “Leonard” is trying to engage his elder brother in a game of sounds. He has quite an imagination this young lad, and by using the routine sounds around their house manages to conjure up a story of a knight who encounters a vampire who needs to go to the dentist but is a bit frightened of a lion. Or, is that really just some pots and pans, a food mixer, a bee and some sea shells. It’s a charming testament to life before television did all of our imagining for us; to a time when we could look at the clouds and see faces or animals. The narrator sums up quite nicely a rapport between the two siblings that vacillates between the irritated and the fascinated, whilst the mother gets on with her chores and the father nurses a nasty cold that also provides for some of their children’s vividly interpreted sound effects. It’s a reminder of tech-free childhood that I quite enjoyed.