Gréti...! (Egy kutya feljegyzései)

I born in Hungary (presently living in Canada) and I speak and understand Hungarian perfectly. I am surprised that I have found only one comment on this film and that was really negative ... from someone from Hungary. I don't think anything big about Hungarian animation, but this one is special in a way, although it's not famous at all.

I am SHOCKED by that the only Hungarian commenter was not able to understand what is going on in the film and actually didn't even understand the "trick" with the speech.

The story is about a female dog. She is telling her story of Her life from Her birth through Her happy days being in love and then the traumatic experience of loosing Her babies. As I remember, She is telling this story at the age somewhere between 1 and 2, but I'm not sure.

We watch the story "as dogs", we understand the speech of dogs, and we also understand the speech of humans exactly as Gréti understands it. The Hungarian version of this film uses a very unique concept which I have never heard before and after: All the speech of dogs is played normally, but for humans is played backward. This is why it appears babbling. Only the human words understood by Gréti are played normally, to be more exact, they are actually told back backward by the voice over artists, and during playing backward you can understand those words, but because of the actually reverse play they still sound weird. As Gréti's life story goes on, She understands more and more words from the human speech, so more and more words get "decrypted", so we, the listeners together with Gréti understand more and more from the human "babbling".

I really don't remember what was this cartoon about. I can only recall the dubbing voice of the title character Gréti. Gréti, is a German shepherd dog, living with an ordinary family from the 90's (or 80's). The film has been made in a realistic style, and it's been animated very well. All the stories are told from the view of the dog. Human voices are appearing, but they're just mumbling nonsense (becouse we see the story from the dogs view!!! woohoo! Well, that is not a very bad idea, but i think we've seen that before). I thought talking animals would be fun, so I started to watch this. Than I realized: This kind of movie's quality only depends on the voice of the protagonist, for she's the only one who speaks (and some other dogs too, but mostly shes the speaker). And she's unbearably horrible. Utterly annoying. Totally disgusting. Sound like her owner put something up her tiny-dog ass. If she'd be my dog, I'd drop her out on the highway instead. Sorry, I'm being a bit rough on this one, but my hair stood up, when i first heard her voice... Other characters were actually quite nice, so that saves the film (from being unwatchable). If you want to watch a realistic tale about dogs, grab 'Plague Dogs' instead! (and a pack of hankies.).

In Hungary, Pannónia Filmstúdió was one of the 5 largest producers of cartoons in the world in the 1980s. (Disney, Hanna-Barbera, Toei, Soyuzmultfilm, Pannonia.) They made 20 films between 1980-89. Thus, the "Habfürdö" (Foam Bath), "Vuk" (The Little Fox), "Fehérlófia" (Son of the White Mare), "Suli-buli", "Idö urai" (Time Masters), "Vizipók-csodapók", "Háry János", "Misi Mókus kalandjai" (The Adventures of Sam the Squirrel), "Hófehér" (Snow White), "Daliás idok" (Heroic Times), "Szaffi" (The Treasure of Swamp Castle), "Mátyás, az igazságos", "Macskafogó" (Cat City), "Gréti...! (Egy kutya feljegyzései)", Éljen Szervác!" (Long Live Servatius!), "Az erdö kapitánya" (Captain of the Forest), "Nefelejcs - Mr. Joker", "Leó és Fred, avagy igaz történetek két jó barátról", "Vili, a veréb" (Willie the Sparrow), "Sárkány és papucs" (Dragon and Slippers). The most successful and well-known of these are "Macskafogó", "Vuk", "Fehérlófia", "Szaffi", " Az idö urai". At the same time, such masterpieces were created as the first feature oil-painting film "Daliás idök". The satirical Snow White story is "Snow White". "Vili, a veréb" about a child turned into a sparrow. The stop motion "The Adventures of Misi Squirrel" made from excellent literary material. "Habfürdö" has become a cult film among artists. Sensational "Háry János" based on the music of the excellent Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály.

And here is "Gréti...!" A very nice cartoon that is hardly known outside of Hungary. The story is about a German shepherd dog. The dog's name is Gréti. He gradually succeeds in making his life with his master more and more comfortable. The film is not full of action, but it is smart. A skillfully structured story, verbally strong. At first, the dog does not understand human language. As the days pass, the dog understands more and more words, and so do we while watching the film. In fact, human speech was recorded backwards. You can also find videos on the YouTube channel where a part of the cartoon is played backwards and thus becomes understandable. Emotional, humorous, touching, excellent cartoon.