Felidae

After seeing The Plague Dogs for the first time and being very impressed by it, I was told about Felidae. At first, I was cautious. I'm not a big fan of of sci-fi and gory movies in general, but this movie turned out to far better than I had anticipated.

Not only was the storyline well written, the quality of the animation was great. There were no obvious CGI effects -- which the movie didn't need -- which sadly seems to be a rarity these days. For those of you who think animated movies are just for kids, guess again! For those looking for a well made, adult animated movie, consider giving this one a try. I did, and did not regret it.

This may be the first animated German movie I've ever seen and it certainly shows with how weird it is. This is quite an impressive movie, if only because of the main character, Francis. I really do feel for this character and I appreciate how he's the most rational and decent character in the whole movie. I like how the cats in this movie are represented more realistically. I couldn't help but think this was kind of a ripoff of "The Secret Of Nimh". You know, a dark animated movie about genetic experiments on talking animals. Many of these scenes are quite intense.

The animation in this film is very well done. Many people will be turned off by the violence. I couldn't find a rating for this movie, but am fairly certain it would at least be PG-13 if it received mainstream theaters. I've heard of a popular book series called "Warrior Cats" which is similar to this. I really do feel bad when things go wrong for Francis and I like how he interacts with the much more dysfunctional characters. While not as good as "The Secret Of Nimh" this is still a fairly unique movie that I recommend. Don't let the animation fool you. It's very adult, so please don't think children should see it. ***

In many a German movie, dark themes of Holocaust, experimentation and Nazi ideology lurk beneath the surface. If there is a Grandpa with dark secret, whatever it is, it is a sublimation of the one who had not much fun in Stalingrad, and it is an almost uniquely German experience. Having been guilty for uspeakable inhumanity of the Holocaust and rarely discussed aggression and genocide of the Slavs, and counting such people as Dr Mengele as their greats, Germans have a dark cynical streak that almost comes off as humor. At least, that part of self aware honesty was still present in 1994, before the Merkel years and renewed expansionism.

This little cartoon is a wonderful animation of a bestseller novel by a Turkish German guest worker and writer, that strikes chords of this kind of German sickness but in the world of cats or uber-cats. Turks have a fondness for cats (as immortalized by the documentary about Istambul cats) as Islam treats dogs with less than respect, and in Germany ubermen are "in" again, despite through denaz ification, only pushed beneath the surface, into subconsciousness so to speak. Combine the two basic ideas and you get this darkly fun cartoon with a bit of mystery. Entertaining to watch, but ultimately nothing can beat the real thing and many many skeletons in the closets of the humorless but sickly amusing psyche of Germans past and present.

When I rented out this movie a few years ago, I was expecting a cute, maybe even sappy happy little movie. Instead, I got one of the most disturbing animated strips I've ever seen.

First of all, having read the two books by now, kudos to Pirincci for making a murder story concerning CATS into such an intriguing tale. I remember being mesmerized by it more than the usual Who-did-it? murder mystery. It held me glued to the screen and actually repulsed in some of the more gorey scenes (Yuh huh, plenty of gorey stuff at that. In an animated cat movie. Whaddaya know.) I think the best thing about the movie, as well as the book, is the perspective from which the story is told: We see the entire movie with Francis, the cat, narrating and giving off his wisecracking and smartarsey comments. It's amazing just how well Pirincci portrayed the general cat's attitude; He manages to keep the arrogance and general feline-ness about them yet manages to bring more complex, what we believe to be human themes into the story without making it seem presumptuous or farfetched.

So if you like cats, aren't too turned off by the idea of seeing some fur and intestines flying while our most beloved kittycoos reveal their somewhat darker side, this is a movie you should definately see.

Felidae is a noir cartoon about cats and murder, based on the best-selling novel by the same name. It is very rare and unique in its genre - an animated animal picture with some of the most disturbing and dark subjects in film.

A serial killer slaying fellow cats in gruesome manners when they are on heat with the wrong race. There are visions of hell, animal experimentation, dead mutilated bodies, sex scenes and race purification - very much like Germany was during the Nazi regime.

It starts out as a plot similar to Basic Instinct, has a human-like tone just as Watership Down had, gruesome murder notions and Satan worshiping somewhat akin to Angel Heart and a few tragic characters like in Apocalypse Now.

Not recommended for children of course! But it is true to the novel and shows the world as we are in now, violent, hateful and cruel and more so in the past but with a future that still leads a way to hope.