From
the studio that brought us the sublime Spirited Away comes
another surreal adventure story. It's not nearly as clever
or insightful, but it's so inventive and, well, bizarre
that it's still worth seeing just for its genre-busting
outrageousness.
Haru
(voiced by Ikewaki/Hathaway) is a chaotic teen who's always
in trouble for something. After she rescues a cat from being
run over by a truck, she learns that she's inadvertently
saved the crown prince of the Cat Kingdom. She's both intrigued
and a bit frightened to attend a banquet in her honour,
hosted by the Cat King himself (Tamba/Curry). But the fact
that he wants her to marry his son is a bit worrying, so
she asks the Baron (Hakamada/Elwes) and his sidekicks--fat-cat
Muta (Watanabe/Boyle) and heroic crow Toto (Saito/Gould)--for
help.
Like
Spirited Away, the story is so nutty that you watch with
slack-jawed amazement. Who could ever think up something
like this? It's thoroughly engaging, especially as it begins
to twist and turn into a kind of warped Alice in Wonderland
adventure that gets seriously scary for poor, scatter-brained
Haru. There's something about having an airhead as the protagonist
that makes this film truly endearing--she seems completely
clueless about what's happening to her. Her ability to take
these increasingly odd situations on board somehow makes
her all the more likeable. While everyone around her is
so suspiciously untrustworthy that you really wonder if
and how she can ever get back to her normal life.
The
animation, like other Ghibli productions, combines lushly
detailed backgrounds with relatively simple-looking characters,
then keeps everything moving in a startlingly eye-popping
way. Kinetic action, sweeping vistas and mind-bending fantasy
fill the screen. The way the cats take on human characteristics
is both funny and creepy--the kind of thing kids would love.
And the way it turns genuinely macabre while remaining blissfully
silly is something Hollywood couldn't achieve if it tried.
Even though it's very thin, adults and kids will find it
a refreshing change from the formula.
