Monday 11 March 2013

Felidae + Previous Blog

Before Reading:

Just a small disclaimer before I do the actual review. The rest of this post is actually taken from another blog of mine that I did a while back, it was a College project that I was mandated to do as part of the coursework, and I was set to write about art that interested me as well as the coursework.

I ended up abandoning that blog after it stopped being necessary for the coursework because they were demanding that I post about the works and topics that didn't interest me, and didn't seem particularly interested in hearing about the things I was interested in. So I moved back to this blog because I'm more at ease to post things in my own time and of my own interest here.


The main review, written the 9th September 2012

In my continuing quest to find interesting animated films to watch, a stumbled onto a German production called Felidae, I could cheat and sum it up in maybe two sentences, but I won't do that, I'd like to think I have more to say about it than that. So I'll just jump right in.


Francis and his unseen owner see their new abode.

Plot

Plot-wise, the film is essentially an animated film  noir throwback. But instead of a private eye with a growling voice deeper than the devil's wine celler (Stop stealing jokes from Zero Punctuation Kris) it instead stars an ordinary housecat. In itself an interesting xenofiction (Fiction written from the point perspective of a none-human character) premise in the style of 'The Secret of NIHM' and 'Watership Down'.

The Cat, named Francis, is exploring his new home he and his owner recently moved into, when he spots the corpse of another cat. A third cat, named Bluebeard, informs him the corpse is the most recent in a string of housecat murders. But since they're cats, they don't have the intelligence nor manpower to solve 'The Case'. Except for Francis, who uncovers a sinister plot that threatens to tear apart the very…...well that part's kind of stupid plot-wise so I won't say anymore.

As I was getting to, the film is a Mature Cartoon Animal film, I.E, a film that start cute animated animals in grim, tortuous, and dare I say, realistic environments. In Watership Down, it was the rabbits evading their predators, in NIHM, it was the Mice trying to avoid environmental disasters, and in Felidae, it's some cats..solving a murder. It's not quite xenofiction, but it's still  interesting.

Unlike the mentioned films, the writers decided to ramp up the violence levels by several magnitudes, so many people will probably be put of if I mention there are countless realistic Cat 
corpses in this film. And I mean, you see them decapitated, disembowelled, electrocuted, hung. It's not a pretty site, and no amount of "Oh, it's just a cartoon." will convince many people otherwise. Trust me, it's not suitable for kids, I'm 18 and I'm not quite sure it was suitable for me.

Favorite  Moments

My favourite two pieces of the film  are both centred around something repulsive happening in an animated and impossible, but realistic manner, both of which I'll describe.

The first is a scene in which Francis has a nightmare about the unseen puppet master of the events of the film, he hangs a large group of cats by their limbs and controls them like marionettes. If the hills turning red with the blood of a hundred rabbits in Watership Down wasn't gruesome enough, then this should be fine. Art wise, the scene is very artistic and expressive, and very unlike the clean-cut style of the rest of the film, the rest of the film's animation falling short of Disney's standards in the Lion King or Aristocats, but this one scene blows those films out of the water for two gruesome and magnificently realised minutes of the film. That scene's on Youtube here (Do not click unless you're overage or really desensetised against Animal cruelty, however fake it is.).

My other favourite scene, to jump in bluntly, is essentially Francis and a random Egyptian cat mating in full view of the camera in another few worryingly detailed moments. What I like is, which I'll elaborate on later, is that they both move in the manner that mating cats would, Francis bites the scruff of the female cat's neck, gets behind her and then they bob up and down for half a minute, but the look on their faces are the expressions of humans, it just makes the scene for me. The whole scene's right here.

Call me a weirdo for being artistically invested in an animation of two cats doing it, but it truly has to be seen to be believed. I guarantee there is no scene like this in any other film.


Here's Francis and Bluebeard having a bath to wash that image from your brain.


Art and Animation

Art wise, the rest of the film is actually rather bland, there are an awful lot of dark backgrounds against dark characters, which WOULD fit with a film noir style if anything was distinctive (See Batman: The animated series for a good example of film noir in animation form.) the only distinctive elements of the film besides the aforementioned sequences would be some of the characters designs, but if the character doesn't have a speaking role, expect them to be the same roughed up looking, brownish cat with a mildly angry look on their face. 

Back to the animation though, the animation on this film, like I said, is a league below the likes of Disney's standards. While they do an excellent job of  mimicking Disney's way of making the movement of the characters exclusively animalistic, E.G. they perform animal-like gestures, have animal-like gaits etc. This film copies some of those aspects, and in some cases goes beyond, such as a scene in which Francis brutally murders a rat of questionable sentience in a very realistic manner. Or indeed the prior mentioned sequence of the mating cats.

Overall

Felidae was a truly bizarre film to watch, both for the sheer gall of the story and the more violent sequences. I would probably watch it again regardless, and I would definitely encourage this sort of film if I had a position of power in the industry, though that would probably rob this film and all similar films of the uniqueness they share.

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