An inspirational work of do-it-yourself computer animation that suggests the sky’s-the-limit potential of the medium for anyone with big ideas and a boundless amount of time on his hands (plus access to Maya or an equivalent CG super-tool), “Away” represents more than three years of imagination and labor by 25-year-old Latvian prodigy Gints Zilbalodis, who earns every aspect of his “a film by” credit: He conceived, designed, animated, and scored — and what a score! — this hypnotic hero’s journey, which treats Joseph Campbell’s monomyth as a kind of waking dream.“Away” opens with its young protagonist dangling by his parachute from a tree in an otherwise barren landscape, which turns out to be the remote end of a primordial island where physics follows a slightly different set of rules.
We don’t know how this kid got there or where he’s going, but the giant black colossus lumbering toward him spells trouble.
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