#53 The Point

February 20, 2021
The Point (1971) ****
DVD
Wildcard

“Sit beside the breakfast table
Think about your troubles
Pour yourself a cup of tea
And think about the bubbles”

The Point is a film I was going to watch awhile ago, but then I noticed that there was a Blu-ray made of a restored 16mm print, with loads of cool extras, and I literally bought a portable Blu-ray player so I could watch it, and tonight was the night.

This is a favourite film of childhood that doesn’t seem to have trickled down to the later generations, but it should have, because it is lovely. I talk to people in their 40s who have never heard of it, let alone younger people, but if you are within a couple of years of my age, you know The Point.

In a land where everyone must have a point, and it’s right there on the top of their heads, a little boy called Oblio is born with no point! He wears a pointed cap, but the evil Count has him banished to The Pointless Forest, where he discovers that nothing is really pointless.

Harry Nilsson came up with the concept while on an acid trip, and you can kind of tell, but it is a lovely film with a terrific soundtrack, delightful animation, and some of the best voice actors of the era. It does move at a slower pace than more recent kids films, as us kids of the 1970s had a different attention span, but it is definitely worth watching by viewers of any age.