„Mom!“, I am shouting excitedly, sitting in the back of her boyfriend’s beamer.
“Mom listen! Now he’s pressing his eyes together, because he really, really has to focus and that other kid is craaazy scared, when he sees the canyon. But he’s running!” I start bouncing on my seat. “And then, listen! Listen! He’s jumping!! Booooom” .
Nothing ever got me as excited as listening to that specific soundtrack, retelling the complete plot of its movie, over and over again.

Luckily this experience is something I can recall easily by watching the movie again. But surely, it won’t carry me away like it did the very first time, starting here:
I am walking down the row, passing by all the red chairs. Searching for my number with the ticket
in my small seven-year-old hands, I’m finally sitting down next to my Dad. He seems to be weirdly happy about something. It’s a Thursday afternoon, one of the days that I have to visit him after school, as decided by the court. I don’t really want to be here with him. I’m embarrassed sitting next to a man and the fact that I don’t even know why he would ask me to go the theatre with him makes my gut feel queasy. I guess he tries to be something like a father, whatever that is. But as the curtains are drawn to the side, my mind goes silent. A blue surface is appearing on the huge screen, and I softly notice violins in my ears surrounded by the mystical sound of wind. A deep note on a piano fills my whole body with chills running from my chest to my arms to my legs. It’s only the production company’s logo, that I can see, but something about the music is already opening a door to an embracing world. Then the logo disappears into a blue sky. I am sinking deeper into the seat as an eagle crosses the bright sun, but the melody is seizing me up and out the theatre to fly with the powerful bird. I can feel every single wing shell of his in my own chest, gliding above the water, ra- cing through the canyon. I’m carried through light flooded forests, over gushing brooks until I meet the wide land of the wild west. “It ha[s] no beginning and no end. No boundary between earth and sky.” Somewhere in the distance a herd of wild horses is galloping its way through the green fields, closing in. They seem to disappear behind a hill, but the piano is gently giving me a hint. And then they rise up as the music explodes into all it’s colors. Racing past me like I’m fusing with their herd. The orchestra moves to the rhythm of their muscles and my heart beats to the rhythm of the sound. My soul is taken with them, running for their wild sake. Every move I make is powerful, capturing my whole body. And it’s this flow that I feel, breathing next to the protagonist throughout the entire story. There is no him and there is no me. It is we, who are ultimately faced with the choice between death or courage. His piercing gaze is focused on the other side of the canyon and mine is focused on him. We close our eyes and breathe in deeply. Violins build up as we run, reaching the edge and we jump with all collected power to the striking drums. With the orchestra we fly. Through the sky we scream of strength. I can feel the wind racing past my body, whipping hair out of my face. Cold air is blowing away every tear of anger. Here I am. I am free.

It might seem that this experience is rather a tale of a mentally broken kid, daydreaming in pictures, than a story about a stunningly animated character.
It’s certainly true that what I am feeling is more important to me than a technical challenge. But it is until today, that this event makes me strive for immersive synergies, that can take me out of this world.