There are some movies that have a reputation for very understandable reasons. I'm not talking about a "So bad it's good" reputation or a "annoying fanbase" reputation here, I'm talking controversy, and a weird grey area of controversy, an area where the film was controversial enough to warrant a limited release, but not enough to be full on banned. Felidae is a German movie that did not get a major release in English speaking countries, and while I can find no evidence of this movie being banned in any country, as far as most people are concerned it may as well be. Felidae is a dark, violent and very sexual animated movie, I cannot stress this fact enough, this movie is not for children, this is a movie strictly for adults. Don't let the fact that this movie is about cats fool you, it is not for kids. However, should this movie get a more official widespread release? And is it worth seeing as an adult?
Felidae is based on a book, by Akif Pirinçci, which I have not read, and is about a cat named Francis who investigates a series of feline murders that happen around his new home with an old and deformed cat named Bluebeard. This investigation leads Francis to a cult, gives him strange dreams, and leads him down to meeting a small cast of colourful cats and finding weird and twisted locations. This is a crime mystery through and through, and it has a lot of the tropes you would expect in a crime thriller, the red herrings, the surprise murder, the twist reveal, it's all here, and I think it is all executed very well. To be honest, I'm not a big consumer of mystery media, I have seen a few crime mysteries like The Usual Suspects, but the only other animated one I watched was Sherlock Gnomes, which I should not have to tell you was bad. However I think it is a good comparison here, because after that movies first reveal, I guessed there would be a second one. I think the key difference here is that, Sherlock Gnomes expected us to be fooled by what are common tropes and clichés that lots of animated movies use, whereas Felidae... well not being a movie for kids definitely gives it a lot more wiggle room.
Yeah, it is time to address the big part of this movie, the violence, blood and sexual references. Is it too much? The problem with answering this question is that, "too much" is a very loose amount that varies from person to person. A cup of liquid is too much for a shot glass, but not enough for a milk jug, and when it comes to art and media, sometimes we're shot glasses, and sometimes we're milk jugs. What we can and cannot tolerate will depend on many factors, including how the material is presented. For example, if "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was not humourous or tongue-in-cheek about topics like the purpose of existence and the nature of the universe, I don't think it would be one of my favourite books, and Felidae takes the deaths and dismemberments seriously, it's not really "Let's look at these bodies to make the viewers uncomfortable", it's more "If we're gonna pull this off, we need to show the bodies".
I do want to make it clear, if blood and gore, animal cruelty and conversations about sex do make you uncomfortable, there is no problem with giving this movie a pass. Cats get electrocuted, cut open, experimented on, burned with acid, and disemboweled all on screen, and we see the body of a decapitated cat in this movie too. Personally, I think this movie went as far as it needed to, but even then that may be too far for some. This is a good point to reiterate that this is not a movie for kids, and again, if some of these topics sound too much for you, I won't blame you if you decide to skip it.
The characters in this movie are interesting. Francis is a good protagonist, determined to solve the case, but he is not a hard ass or grizzled, he still cracks jokes with Bluebeard, who is the more grizzled of the two, but still has his friendlier and dumber moments. Throughout the movie, I was as invested in the mystery as Francis was, and I laughed with him and Bluebeard when they took playful jabs at each other. I will say, the voice acting was not particularly great, I watched an English dub that was uploaded to YouTube in 2013, which I'm assuming is an official dub. It sounded professional enough, but it's very bland in a lot of places, like they were recording for an audiobook.
That leads me nicely into the technicals of the movie. The rest of the sound is fairly good, the score is nice and does its job well. A lot of the sound mixing is really good though, there was a scene where Francis is escaping some cats chasing him, and during a fall his claws scratch a metal pipe and the sound just made me wince, but it a good way. The animation on the other hand, very nice. Apparently the animation was outsourced to about ten different studios, if you really pay attention you could probably tell what scenes were done by different studios, there was one dream sequence that was marvelously done in a much different style to the rest of the movie, with a lot of linear detail and some odd fade effect between the movement it was really well done. Apparently that scene was done by the main animation studio TFC Trickompany. I will say, I noticed some objects that, if they weren't CG I would be surprised, because this was the era that animated movies began to incorporate more CG into their style, but even then the rest of the movie is very well drawn and animated.
Felidae is a weird movie to really rate. On the one hand, I quite liked it. I enjoyed the lead character, I was invested in the mystery, it was exciting and thrilling, well made all around. On the other hand, the content and subject matter may be a bit much for some viewers. I do have to consider stuff like this, because I rank these movies by how I would recommend them, and typically a movie I have to put an asterisk next to would fall into the "Slight Recommendation" category. However, I want to stress that this is the kind of movie I want to see more of in animation, one that is strictly for adults, and not in the South Park or Simpsons movie sense. This is a kind of adult animated movie I don't think I've seen anything like, a story that would be very different if told in live action. Goodness, imagine is this was done in the style of the Cats Broadway show, that would be hilarious. Anyway, overall, I want to see more movies like this in animation, however, I do have to concede that when I recommend this movie, I am always going to have to say "But..." when doing so. "Oh yeah, this movie is good, but...", "I quite enjoyed it, but..." it's not a movie I can whole heartedly recommend. It's not great, but if it sounds like something you can stomach, go for it, and if it sounds too much for you, that's understandable too.
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