And You Thought I Was Going To Do A Christmas Movie....

Very short review today, because a) my computer is in the shop for repairs (I'm using another on loan) b) today's movie is a short film (only 30 minutes) and c) I don't want to dwell too long on this short... it's too tempting to over-analyze it when all I should do is just appreciate it as a series of moving images more akin to an animated Salvador Dali painting than a traditional anime movie (yes, today is more anime - yay!).  So, without further ado, here is today's review for

Cat Soup

Short Film, 2001

Director: Tatsuo Sato

Story (What Little There Is)

A small cat tries to save his big sister's soul from being taken to the afterlife after she dies but ends up tearing it in half after a tug-o-war match with Death.  Afterwards, he and his now-zombified sister go to the circus and do stuff.  Then there is a massive flood and they do more stuff.  Then they torture a pig and do more stuff.  And then they do more stuff.  As you can see his movie is light on actual plot, though not on weird shit.

Review

This has to be one of the oddest things to come out of Japan, and I know that's saying a lot.  This is the country that gave us mutant moths, schoolgirl-loving tentacle monsters and House.  As I remarked before at the beginning of this post this short film seems to be more influenced by surrealist painters more than other anime.  What makes it even more extraordinary is that this was directed by the same man who gave us Martian Successor Nadesico, which is about as different from this as Spartacus is from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Bad comparisons aside this surreal stream-of-consciousness animated freak-out is ripe for over-analysis and hunting for meanings in the symbolism behind every weird image put up on screen, but I'll leave that to the High School English Teachers to discuss between joints in the teacher's lounge.  Personally I just love surreal imagery and someone doing something different for a change - and Cat Soup is definitely different.  Check it out.  If you love it, great.  If not, then hey, you only wasted half an hour of your time, right?

Screenshots

No attempts at funny captions today... I think the images speak for themselves.  Also, I had to restrain myself with the number of pictures... it's so easy to want to post 30 million pics up here since the visuals in Cat Soup are so fantastic (in both senses of the word).  I decided to save some surprises for the viewer and limit myself to three.  Hopefully this will inspire you to see this movie.