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The Lost Thing

There is definite confusion as to the meaning of the lost thing at the beginning of the film. It opens on a sepia toned, homogenized world beset with instructions and directions on everything, and could best be described as some sort of failed utopian society. It tells us a story about a boy who was wandering on the beach as he noticed a large, lost, out of place thing. When the boy first found ‘the lost thing’ it seemed as though no one else noticed it, except the boy. After some inspection, the boy found that the thing could move on its own, and they ended up playing together.

After spending the day on the beach, the boy decided to take it with him and ask for help from his friends and family to figure out what the giant, weird ‘creature’ was. When the boy found the ‘lost thing’ it was so different to anything he has ever seen before. It was colorful, creative, and joyful. The thing was everything that society wasn’t. Unfortunately, even after scientific evaluation and observation, nobody knew exactly what it was. Throughout this time of discovery you learn that the people and the lives they lead are very simplistic and boring.

The boy then takes it home and treats it like a pet. He feeds it well and has it help with some work. However, his parents seemed not to like this pet, so the boy decided to let it stay in their tool shed. It is here that the thing consumes various instruments and tools, but is unable to stay due to his size and curiosity. The boy then sought out a place where the thing would fit in and sees an ad on tv for a kind of lost and found for all styles of these ‘lost things.’

Upon arrival to the office of the lost and found they enter a dark room and approach a giant desk which, in typical bureaucratic fashion, is an oversized filing cabinet no doubt filled to the brim with endless forms for filling out and filing. In the office, an odd looking man with a sort of tape-recorder on its back told the boy to take the machine to the place where it should belong. Luckily, though difficult find, the boy can stop the ‘lost thing’ from been harmed or killed by finding this place. With the help of several specific signs on the road, the boy found a ‘home’ of weird things. In exchange, though, the boy must leave his ‘lost thing’ with other ‘lost things.’ The thing looked happy to stay, and it was there that they separated. Just like we, in most of the times need to hide or bury our dreams and all those beautiful things that make us different in our head and act like the rest of the world.

The story seems normal but it does tell us a few things. First, we should pick up everything and return it to the place it belongs to. For instance, it’s never a reasonable choice to send a lost cat to a place that it does not like. It would end up lost again and, in the end, we did not really help that cat. It also tells us to be kind to lost creatures since they are ostensibly helpless, and they need to be taken care of.

On its surface it feels almost like a reverse Alice in Wonderland. This plain person living in a bland world has to help this fantastical creature back through the rabbit hole to be with its own ‘kind.’ But the true ‘aha’ moment wasn’t until it was revealed that less and less creatures were seen as the main character grew older. This then leads us to believe that the things are representative of both everything inspiring and childhood lost. As the film goes on, we start to realize that the ‘lost thing’ represents the good imaginations, childhood fantasies, dreams, etc. that we, as an adult, used to have. The creatures are curiosity, joy, inspiration, and so much more. They are what we lose to the grind of time, adrift elsewhere and gone to us as we fulfill our drive to fit in and be the same. The creatures aren’t completely withdrawn, just gone home, down the rabbit hole. And their home is the place where all the creativeness, individuality, and happiness that was rejected from society has come together as one.