BORROWED TIME. Trauma Under the Microscope

In everyday filmgoing, filled with admiration for grand spectacles brimming with cinematic magic, the average moviegoer often loses sight of the richness of experiences that a small-scale short film can deliver. If one were to delve into the body of work created in this format and comb through its most important titles, it would soon become clear that many outstanding pieces are hidden there. Among them is Borrowed Time.

The production caused quite a stir at the time. Before it made its way online, it had already amassed a slew of awards, granted in its respective weight class. The action of this seven-minute film is set in the world of the Wild West. The story follows a sheriff who returns, years later, to the site of a tragic incident.

Borrowed Time was produced under the banner of Pixar. It was directed by a debuting duo—Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj—with production handled by Amanda Deering Jones. The film’s score was composed by Gustavo Santaolalla, a two-time Academy Award winner for his music for Babel and Brokeback Mountain. Before moving on to the next part of the text, take a moment to familiarize yourselves with the result of their work.

Pixar has repeatedly proven that it excels at tackling serious and challenging themes that resonate more strongly with adult viewers. I will never forget the way Up addressed the issue of transience. In the short film Borrowed Time, the filmmakers place trauma under the microscope—trauma that, by refusing to let go of the past, casts a shadow over the state of the soul in the present. The creators themselves described the goal they set during the film’s production as follows:

We wanted to do something that was more mature thematically, and to show that animation can be an appropriate medium for telling any kind of story.

That goal was certainly achieved, as there is no denying that Borrowed Time is defined above all by the emotional weight of its storytelling. The protagonist, an adult man, is still unable to come to terms with the premature loss of his father—a loss to which he himself contributed. He therefore decides to confront the demons of the past one last time. What saves him from sinking into the abyss of oblivion is partly chance and partly… a watch he once received from his father. This simple sign from fate, also a sign of presence, allows him to move forward once again, this time freeing himself from the constricting bonds of trauma. Simple, beautiful, and true. It’s astonishing that all of this reached me in less than seven minutes. And I had never seen blood in a Pixar production before.