"This artful animation, rich in symbolic imagery, is a short story about a love letter's journey between two lovers, and its contents. It is also an advertisement for the Post Office.
A series of two-dimensional white images continually mutate against a moving, multiplane coloured background. Accompanied by specially composed music, a drawn letter transforms in rapid succession, as it travels, into a variety of symbolic images. Starting as the man posting the letter, it takes the shape of a man and a woman, their lips, eyes, hearts; butterflies, a snail, a finger, a skull, a horse which disintegrates; and many more, all simple lines, black or white against a colourful backdrop. Then there are paired shapes: a man and a woman, two letters flying off into the sky, an apple and a mouth, a bee and a flower, a butterfly and a candle, a knife and a fork, a lock and a key and, finally, a letter and a stamp. On the letter it is written 'Empire airmail'. The letter folds itself up into a small dot and disappears into a black screen.
Love on the Wing was one of the first examples of McLaren's experiments in drawing and painting directly onto the film strip. One of his prime beliefs was that animation was not the art of drawings which move, but of movements which are drawn. Intended as an advertisement for airmail services, it was banned by the Post Office for its supposedly "Freudian" imagery."
From http://www.bfi.org.uk/education/teaching/storyshorts2/films/film5.html
You can view 'Love on the Wing' at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1qD3gfk4QI
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