My Dog Tulip

At first this film looks like a short for children. It is not. It is a rather lecherous look at dogs. It is not for prudes. The ideas it discusses seem more shocking because of the innocent animations used to present them. I am one of the least prudish people I know, but found this film repeatedly embarrassing. It seemed unseemly for Christopher Plummer to be relishing such gross things as vomit, diarrhoea, bowel movements, urination, masturbating dogs, getting turned on by dog genitalia, zoophilia, leching over dog breeding, dog erections, tight dog foreskins, and dog behaviour in heat.

It is naughtily amusing by periodically putting a dress on the animated dog Tulip, and has her behave with dog-like motivations but as a human. This makes clear just how different dog behaviour is from human.

The "kindly" old man behaves in ways that belie his gentle voice. He allows his dog to bite children, to bark at all hours, to attack people and poop on other people's property then not clean it up. He does not spay his dog then beats all the dogs attracted. He lets his dog have puppies just so he can derive some perverted pleasure from the birth before drowning them. This clashes drastically with the charming animation which is like entering a painting.

The musical score is rendered with extraordinary crispness. Its cheery oompah band is used rarely to punctuate the story. It is very well done.

The big problem with the film is its deceptiveness. It so very different from what you would expect, you feel tricked into participating in some filthy joke. It is not X-rated porn, but it is quite off-colour and the box should let you know to expect that.

I have been dying to see this film since I first heard about it over a year ago and finally saw it, and, not only did it live up to my very high expectations - it surpassed them!

Based on the classic book, "My Dog Tulip" by J.R. Ackerley, this film is an absolute treat from start to finish. It's an animated film and every frame is a work of art. It was hand-drawn but not on paper - it's the first film to be drawn on a tablet and over 100,000 drawings were made. You can almost feel the love and devotion that went into this touching story.

It's about a lonely man, who, quite by chance, acquires a German Shepherd dog, who turns out to be the love of his life! I'm sure anyone who has ever loved a dog will enjoy this story. However, just because it's animated doesn't mean it's aimed at children. Quite the contrary - it's definitely for adults as much of the movie involves Ackerley's frustrated attempts to find a mate for Tulip.

If you're a dog-lover, an artist, or just someone who appreciates a good film, do yourself a favour and go see this wonderfully unique film! I can't wait to see it again!

This film is perfect.

The story is lovely, the music fits brilliantly, the animation, especially in the way. with a few lines and a little colour, it catches the "character" of the dogs is incredible in it's simple perfection.

I came to England (from Scotland) and fell in love with the place thanks to H.E. Bates' books...this little film reminded me so much of them....it's very restrained in it's beauty, summed up by the first line: "In being quite unable to love each other, the Englishmen turn to their dogs"

Why did this film not sweep the Oscars? No other animation comes close...apart from perhaps "Mary & Max".

Everything about it is perfect.

Although the film is specifically about a relationship between an older man and a dog, I think that the relationship with pets is reasonably universal. OK there are obvious differences between the dynamics of having a dog and those of having a lizard but generally the nature of the affection and the relationship is similar in most cases. I say this as someone who had a dog for about 8 years and now own 2 cats and for all the animals they became a part of my life to the point I could not imagine being without them and did tend to treat them with an affection that they probably don't deserve as mere animals. Anyway, all this rambling is by way of saying that I was open to this capturing this relationship even if it was not specifically the one I had experienced.

And I genuinely didn't expect the relationship to be like my experiences but somehow I wished they had at least been vaguely similar because as it was I really got no sense of this affection until it is spelt out in the narration in the closing few moments. Up till this point the material is incredibly detached from emotions and almost scientific in its removed observation of Tulip. The film is remarkably crude in its contemplation of her ablutions, her period in heat and so on; I really felt quite confused by this as I was not sure what to take from it. There seemed to very little that was heartfelt or about a sense of companionship in the way I would see it – for the majority of the film Tulip came over as almost an insect in a jar.

The animation is refreshingly rough and personal – there is more heart in this than in the actual material. Unfortunately the animation amplifies the crudity of the film, showing the biological obsessions of Ackerley and it frequently gives the film even more of a sordid feel. Plummer's narration is nicely warm and if there is an hint of affection in the material then his voice brings it out – shame there isn't much to be had.

A really disappointing film then; it proposes to be about the relationship between a man and his dog but presents something that is roundly scientific, cold and lacks any sense of heart or feeling. The animation both helps it be better and also be weaker in different ways.

More than anything, this film is lazy. There is no continuity between animation styles, often switching randomly from coloured and established frames and terrible sketches that morphed in shape and form. There is no pattern to what is meant to be "completed" and it took the appearance that the filmmakers only animated the scenes they wanted to. It gave me a headache more than anything else.

As someone with a reactive and sometimes difficult dog, the cavalier attitude of the narrator was exhausting. Tulip is rarely on the leash, the owner details the "unfairness" when others tell him to clean up the poop, and he doesn't do anything to even try to control the dog, insisting that she needs a chance to prove she has intelligence (I'm sorry but this logic is so flawed, if you have an aggressive dog you anticipate that.) The amount of toilet humor is absurd. I'd rather have been watching Shrek for the constant poop jokes.

How they took a funny, witty, and charming book about the love or an owner and his dog and turned it into this lazy, heartless, bleak adaption is beyond me. Such a disappointment.