This movie was, or still is, the most expensive animated movie in Germany. It shows too, the main animation on the characters are gorgeous. The art style really has a lot of appeal too. Even the CGI that's evident in places looks really good for 1994 standards and doesn't get in the way at all. And why is this so movie hard to like for me? Well, I don't know about you but how could you get that deeply into understanding the plot and the characters where every 16th of a second, you get bloody cat guts shoved in your face?
"Felidae" is certainly a very toxic breed of animated film. Due to how limited its release is internationally (only being released in Germany, Spain and France theatrically), you'd only know about it from hearsay, word-of-mouth, coming across the movie while on holiday in mainland Europe or, as we're in the 21st century, nowadays coming across the multitude of fan-edited music videos on YouTube using clips from the movie. But once you find out about it or even see a little bit of it, it doesn't let go from your head. And if you have the same experiences I've had with this movie and trying to enjoy it, you'd wish it would just leave your mind as soon as possible! The otherwise decent animated murder-mystery with a fascinating subplot about the ethnics behind human behaviour to other animals is savagely ruined by the animators disturbingly having far, far too much fun animating blood and guts at any opportunity during the story (and sometimes for the sheer hell of it, the first piece of bloodshed in the movie comes from the main character stepping on a bug...this bug is given an extremely pointless close-up shot, as is every single other gory and bloody part of the movie). This stems from just looking more in-detail on the feline victims of the story to around 4 solid minutes of cat vivisection, as well as fights and even an extremely disturbing and nihilistic dream sequence animated in almost sepia tone. Every little detail is put in close-up or shown multiple, multiple times in the same scene and it ends up being an incredible chore to watch and whether you're squeamish or not, really distracts you from the actual story and character development.
It's such a massive shame too, because what story it has isn't that bad and the animation is incredibly good for the mid-90's. It basically feels like someone wrote an intelligent plot and then a Marilyn Manson fan with a lobotomy decided to take that story and alter it insanely to the point of where the movie turns from a dimensional, well thought-out and even original murder-mystery into sheer exploitation in far too many fields that should be allowed for any animated movie, even an adult one.
If you don't fancy being shoved in the face with constant animated cat guts as you watch a movie, I can't recommend this movie to you. What a sad disappointment.
"Felidae" is certainly a very toxic breed of animated film. Due to how limited its release is internationally (only being released in Germany, Spain and France theatrically), you'd only know about it from hearsay, word-of-mouth, coming across the movie while on holiday in mainland Europe or, as we're in the 21st century, nowadays coming across the multitude of fan-edited music videos on YouTube using clips from the movie. But once you find out about it or even see a little bit of it, it doesn't let go from your head. And if you have the same experiences I've had with this movie and trying to enjoy it, you'd wish it would just leave your mind as soon as possible! The otherwise decent animated murder-mystery with a fascinating subplot about the ethnics behind human behaviour to other animals is savagely ruined by the animators disturbingly having far, far too much fun animating blood and guts at any opportunity during the story (and sometimes for the sheer hell of it, the first piece of bloodshed in the movie comes from the main character stepping on a bug...this bug is given an extremely pointless close-up shot, as is every single other gory and bloody part of the movie). This stems from just looking more in-detail on the feline victims of the story to around 4 solid minutes of cat vivisection, as well as fights and even an extremely disturbing and nihilistic dream sequence animated in almost sepia tone. Every little detail is put in close-up or shown multiple, multiple times in the same scene and it ends up being an incredible chore to watch and whether you're squeamish or not, really distracts you from the actual story and character development.
It's such a massive shame too, because what story it has isn't that bad and the animation is incredibly good for the mid-90's. It basically feels like someone wrote an intelligent plot and then a Marilyn Manson fan with a lobotomy decided to take that story and alter it insanely to the point of where the movie turns from a dimensional, well thought-out and even original murder-mystery into sheer exploitation in far too many fields that should be allowed for any animated movie, even an adult one.
If you don't fancy being shoved in the face with constant animated cat guts as you watch a movie, I can't recommend this movie to you. What a sad disappointment.
- 4 out of 10