In retrospect yeah, I've since spoken with a number of furries about Wolf Children and they're much more taken with it than I was! It's given me more insight about how it resonates for different people. Basically it's not a film to be thought about too deeply, it works best on the level of emotions, growing up, and relationships. The moment you start trying to analyze it, things get worrisome.
In one conversation with someone who also had mixed feelings about it, he pointed out that it seemed to reinforce a social message that the characters weren't allowed to be two things at once - human and wolf - and that an equally interesting story could have emerged if the story had been about defying roles, embracing both aspects and being ok with it, tragic consequences or not. It's also worth mentioning that the YouTube series Every Frame a Painting did a really good analysis of one of the film's visual sequences.
In the past couple of weeks I've been trying to catch up on the backlog of foreign animated films I've been meaning to watch. Most of them non-furry, alas. There was a Japanese film called Rudolph the Black Cat, it turns out it's for really young children. Cat gets lost, makes some friends, is taught the importance of reading, etc. It did very well at the box office in Japan and China! I don't think it has much to grab an adult audience though. If it's been dubbed into English, it would make a pleasant distraction for North American kids.
The Spanish film Birdboy was trying very hard to be dark, edgy, dystopian and mildly offensive, except beyond that, it didn't seem to be trying to say anything specific - I think it's relying on the viewer to extract their own meaning. Vaguely anti-pollution, anti-nuclear, anti-capitalism, anti-anarchy, anti-police-gun-machismo... with some trippy nightmarish sequences and also a beautiful nature scene hidden in the gloom.
I started to watch Mamoru Hosoda's recent film Mirai, and I gave up on it halfway through. This is a rare thing for me - if I'm not quite enjoying a film, usually I'll just increase the video's playing speed. The story revolves around a four-year-old boy who becomes jealous of the attention that his new baby sister is getting. It's a realistic premise, but watching a selfish kid constantly whine and act annoying to piss off his family gets tiresome fast. On the plus side, there's a kind of magical front yard that makes all sorts of interesting things happen! Some really good animation going on in there. Just not the film for me. The trailer seemed to suggest there might be some furry content, but it's borderline and very fleeting.
There's a Mexican children's film called El angel en el reloj (The Angel in the Clock) which I'd like to watch, and have a copy of, except there are no English subtitles available. (Amazon Prime U.S. might have Spanish streaming closed-captions? But I'm not a subscriber nor in the U.S.) The story might be about a kid who has a terminal case of leukemia but doesn't know it yet
(??), and ends up... in a kind of magical dream-world? It looks really colorful! And there's a talking bear side-character.
And I've still got a couple more films to go, one or two of which might be worth a furry review - we'll see, here's hoping! :-)
In retrospect yeah, I've since spoken with a number of furries about Wolf Children and they're much more taken with it than I was! It's given me more insight about how it resonates for different people. Basically it's not a film to be thought about too deeply, it works best on the level of emotions, growing up, and relationships. The moment you start trying to analyze it, things get worrisome.
In one conversation with someone who also had mixed feelings about it, he pointed out that it seemed to reinforce a social message that the characters weren't allowed to be two things at once - human and wolf - and that an equally interesting story could have emerged if the story had been about defying roles, embracing both aspects and being ok with it, tragic consequences or not. It's also worth mentioning that the YouTube series Every Frame a Painting did a really good analysis of one of the film's visual sequences.
In the past couple of weeks I've been trying to catch up on the backlog of foreign animated films I've been meaning to watch. Most of them non-furry, alas. There was a Japanese film called Rudolph the Black Cat, it turns out it's for really young children. Cat gets lost, makes some friends, is taught the importance of reading, etc. It did very well at the box office in Japan and China! I don't think it has much to grab an adult audience though. If it's been dubbed into English, it would make a pleasant distraction for North American kids.
The Spanish film Birdboy was trying very hard to be dark, edgy, dystopian and mildly offensive, except beyond that, it didn't seem to be trying to say anything specific - I think it's relying on the viewer to extract their own meaning. Vaguely anti-pollution, anti-nuclear, anti-capitalism, anti-anarchy, anti-police-gun-machismo... with some trippy nightmarish sequences and also a beautiful nature scene hidden in the gloom.
I started to watch Mamoru Hosoda's recent film Mirai, and I gave up on it halfway through. This is a rare thing for me - if I'm not quite enjoying a film, usually I'll just increase the video's playing speed. The story revolves around a four-year-old boy who becomes jealous of the attention that his new baby sister is getting. It's a realistic premise, but watching a selfish kid constantly whine and act annoying to piss off his family gets tiresome fast. On the plus side, there's a kind of magical front yard that makes all sorts of interesting things happen! Some really good animation going on in there. Just not the film for me. The trailer seemed to suggest there might be some furry content, but it's borderline and very fleeting.
There's a Mexican children's film called El angel en el reloj (The Angel in the Clock) which I'd like to watch, and have a copy of, except there are no English subtitles available. (Amazon Prime U.S. might have Spanish streaming closed-captions? But I'm not a subscriber nor in the U.S.) The story might be about a kid who has a terminal case of leukemia but doesn't know it yet
(??), and ends up... in a kind of magical dream-world? It looks really colorful! And there's a talking bear side-character.
And I've still got a couple more films to go, one or two of which might be worth a furry review - we'll see, here's hoping! :-)