Educational Media Reviews Online

The boy who cried "iceberg," like the boy who cried "wolf" has an overactive fantasy life demonstrated by animator Paul Driessen's interesting split screen technique. This technique involves showing the boy's reality on the left side of the screen and his dreams, fantasies, and daydreams on the right. The relationship between the reality as it occurs, and the fantasy spawned by the "real" events, involves the viewer in participating actively in the development of the narrative rather than sitting back and allowing it to simply drift on.

Split screen techniques have frequently been used in live-action films to show disparate fictional or non-fiction events as they occur simultaneously. Watching this film unfold affords the viewer a choice of viewing as the narrative cause and effect are shown side by side. The viewer may choose to switch attention from screen to screen depending on action or select to follow one side all the way through, then rewind and watch the other side. Driessen pushes the narrative simultaneity of fantasy and reality further to show us how everyday events and locales propel the boy's imagination so that walking on the deck of a cruise ship he imagines himself to be walking in the desert. The color saturation of both the deck and the sand are similar in a way that helps the viewer participate in, and understand the fantasy. The boy's earlier fantasies of eluding bad guys on the way to school and living through a spy torture scene during a rather dull class at school are humorous as the boy is portrayed as an action hero/ avenger on the right side of the screen, while at the same time, being shown as the regular kid he is on the left side of the screen. However, when the action shifts to the left side of the screen upon his spotting the oncoming iceberg, his parents do not listen and he is powerless. Both screens fade to white and then fade-in for the epilogue with the stark reality of the calm sea and iceberg on the left and the last vestiges of the boy's thwarted hope to survive on the right.

Although the film begins in a playful and cheery manner it ends rather tragically. A number of elements foreshadow the outcome, particularly the use of water sounds. The cumulative effect of the sound of underwater "blimping" whenever the boy begins to fantasize carry him to the end and his dying fantasy to go back to his regular life. It is not a film for small children but it is recommended for high school and above, for Film Studies and Media Studies.