Tag Archives: Animation

Capsules

2024 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: AND THE REST, PART ONE

Leave a comment

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

Montréal 2024

Walking through a downtown department store my first day, I overheard a fellow say to his wife, “They have some more over here, eh?”, referring to a rack of fanny packs.

It will only get less Canadian from here.

7/18: 4PM

I recently stumbled across an unexpected “horror-of-manners“.  I also was not expecting a “tragedy-of-manners” (one which slips into “thriller-of-manners” on occasion) which unfolds with the breezy charm of a Dupieux picture—and here I mean, a Buñuel picture.

4PM is the most boring festival title this year, and appropriately it focuses on a boring man: a cardiologist by trade, who takes to visiting his new neighbors (a professor on sabbatical, and his wife) every day at… 4 o’clock. Sitting, sitting, sitting, and saying virtually nothing. Promptly at 6, he rises, gathers his coat, and wordlessly leaves the premises. The professor and wife alternately marvel, cringe, fear, and laugh at the phenomenon; and then details regarding their unlikely guest begin to emerge. Jay Song’s film delights and saddens, ending with a crushing act of vengeance.

7/19: The A-Frame

has assembled an interesting “hard” science-fiction film with some poignancy, featuring a just-annoyed-enough protagonist with bone cancer, a just-tough-but-caring-enough support character surviving cancer, and a just-sketchy-enough quantum physicist who has discovered, quite by accident, a cure for cancer. (Oh, and lest I forget Rishi, there’s also a just-sad-sack-enough comedian with cancer, facing his travails with an admirable flippancy and an endless line of bad-but-good jokes.) The A-Frame is a solidly B-movie experience, with neat-o machinery, touching moments, and commendable practical effects.

Vulcanizadora

The latest from Joel Potrykus begins as a buddy comedy: a buddy comedy with opera and metal. Two guys walk resolutely down a country road along the woodland edge, and with a sudden drop of the hardcore Continue reading 2024 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: AND THE REST, PART ONE →

List Candidates

FANTASIA 2024: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: GHOST CAT ANZU (2024)

Leave a comment

化け猫あんずちゃん

Bakeneko anzu-chan

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Yôko Kuno,

FEATURING: Voices of Noa Gotô, , Munetaka Aoki

PLOT: Abandoned in the sleepy beach town of Iketeru, 11-year-old Karin finds herself in the care of Anzu: a 37-year-old, human-sized “ghost cat” with a penchant for pachinko and speedy scootering.

Still from Ghost Cat Anzu (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Seeing as we’ve certified a charming tale of someone pulled into realm of the spirits, I’ll suggest we include this differently charming tale of the spirit world slacking around amongst us people. Also, there are too few children’s movies on the list, and never enough giant cats.

COMMENTS:

“Whoa, that’s one big frog.”

Gah! Who are you?

“I’m Anzu, a ghost cat. Who are you?”

I’m a giant frog monster. Ribbet-Ribbet!

And so it goes in Iketeru, the idyllic waterfront village where a young girl finds herself ditched by her deadbeat dad who has some complicated debts he needs to take care of in Tokyo. From this pedestrian kick-off, directors Kuno and Yamashito rise to an impressive challenge: crafting a laid-back, deadpan, almost ‘ world in a whimsical, Ghibli-style animation.

Karin is cynical before her time. Beyond her difficulties arising from the ne’er-do-well father, we learn that she lost her mother at the age of eight, and has been under the guardianship of a grown man barely more mature than she is (perhaps even less so). In many ways, her circumstances don’t change when she is introduced to Anzu, a human-sized—and very human-acting — cat, who can perceive and interact with the spirit world. Anzu helps Karin’s grandfather maintain the small local temple, as well as a taking few odd jobs around town. He travels by scooter, though an early brush with the law strips him of his beloved transport.

Mythical Japanese beings emerge for a cocktail party hosted by Anzu, and Karin meets a Hag, a giant mushroom-man, a stone-form baby Buddha, the “giant frog monster” mentioned earlier, and more. Anzu’s slack sensibilities keep him from ever working too hard (he is a cat, after all), but he is a good friend: he feels bad after gambling away Karin’s earnings at the local pachinko parlor. It’s all so very natural, despite the entities in question. Frog and friends get jobs at the golf course whose woods they inhabit. Karin teases the two local boys (self-proclaimed creators of a “Contrarian” club). Grandfather oversees the temple. And so it goes.

But most of all, Karin misses her mother, and she undertakes a daring escapade into the underworld, with the considerable assistance from the God of Poverty, who is bamboozled into the task by Anzu. Entering through the crematorium’s out-of-order toilet while on a day-trip to Tokyo, Karin, Anzu, and the god visit the underworld hotel, and their capering unleashes demons and the God of Death onto the surface. The film lays on silliness and peculiarity thickly, and the picturesque animation maintains a perfect tension with the near-flippant attitude suffusing Kuno and Yamashito’s collaboration. Strange spirits, it seems, are all around us. And they’re just about as lazy as we are.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Combining live-action filming with frame-by-frame rotoscoping, it crafts a surreal, dream-like world. With its colorful art style and quirky characters, Ghost Cat Anzu explores profound themes of grief, family, and spirituality in an approachable way for both children and adults alike.” – Naser Nahandian, Gazettely (contemporaneous)