A gang of three men are in an abandoned industrial building, torturing another for some sort of code. Meanwhile, in a much lovelier and quirky side of town, a young girl sets out with her grandmother to travel to a ballet audition.
If anyone is looking for where all the stocks of charm, whimsy, and oddness have all gone, then you should check this film since I guess most of these qualities will be found here in abundance. Channelling Amelie and other similar works, the film creates this heavily styled fantasy world which manages to intrigue on several levels, deliver a wonderfully charming little sequence, then head on its way. Technically it is very well done, with the animated aspects benefiting from the fact that the film has an "other-worldly" feel to by design, so the semi-real cityscapes don't need to blend perfectly. The color and whimsy of the girl's sequences clash nicely (at first) with the intrigue and violence of the gang material; I liked that these converged gradually as the girl and her grandmother enter the industrial area.
Of course the key scene is really enjoyable – okay a touch obvious in what it does, and perhaps it goes on a bit longer than necessary, but I really liked it and felt that it judged the tone just right, as indeed it did throughout the whole film. It may define itself very clearly by everything it does, but for me it still worked, with a very nicely controlled balance of darkness, whimsy, and wonder throughout.
