The German made animated feature Felidae has, at least at first glance, the slick commercial look of the type of Hollywood productions we're used to seeing from the likes of Disney and Don Bluth.  If you're anything like me, that might prove to be a bit of a stumbling block, because, being that I'm no big fan of mainstream animation, that's not the type of cinematic experience I tend to seek out.  And indeed, during its first few minutes I had some serious doubts about whether I was going to enjoy Felidae.  Then came the moment when the film's protagonist, a feline detective by the name of Francis, stumbles across his first horribly mutilated kitty corpse, and I quickly realized that there were quite a few shades of difference between Felidae and Fievel Goes West.

Based on the first of a series of novels by author Akif Pirincci, Felidae starts out like an especially grue-spattered boys' adventure (but with cats) and quickly turns into a bleak apocalyptic noir along the lines of Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (again, but with cats).  In the service of this dark vision, the filmmakers pile on the extreme gore and nightmarish imagery, still managing all the while to deliver a complex and compelling mystery.  Needless to say, this isn't one to show the kids, and I would hesitate to recommend it to the more sensitive cat lovers out there.  However, feline enthusiasts of a bit more two-fisted nature might find much to like, especially in the obvious respect and care that the filmmakers bring to the task of representing their titular creatures ("Felidae" being the name for the biological family to which cats belong).

Both Pirincci (who scripted) and the animators charged with bringing his words to life do a pretty good job of providing their furry cast with feelings and motivations recognizable to humans without simply turning them into humans in cat drag.  While these cats speak to each other in complete sentences and have an awareness of human doings far beyond what one might expect, there is no doubt that theirs is a world entirely "other" from the one that their oblivious owners inhabit.  There's also been an effort not to sentimentalize the beasts; these tabbies, for all their anthropomorphic antics, are just as likely to casually display their buttholes, gulp down a passing fly, eat garbage and piss wherever they please as your own little Whiskers or Tigger.  Oh, and they also fuck - and, as in life, it's no candlelight and Barry-White-on-the-stereo affair, but rather the same brutal spectacle of hissing, biting and forced penetration that plays out every day in suburban backyards from here to Munich and beyond.

Felidae begins with Francis, who is gifted with an inquisitive temperament beyond that of the typical house cat, moving into a new neighborhood where a feline serial killer appears to be on the loose.  While his newfound friend, a battle-scarred and foul-mouthed tom by the name of Bluebeard, shares the belief of the other cats in the neighborhood that the bloody murders are the work of a human, Francis thinks that the evidence points to another cat, and sets out to sniff out the culprit.  His search brings him in contact with a messianic cat cult who worship a perhaps mythical super-feline martyred at the hands of a sadistic human scientist (and who express their worship through a ritual of mass self-electrocution); and later leads him to discover that the very house he and his owner have moved into may have been the site of the fabled atrocities - which in reality go way beyond what anyone could previously have imagined.

Francis is guided in his search by a series of vivid dreams which make up some of Felidae's most memorable - and horrifying - moments.  I challenge anyone who has seen this film to forget the mentally scarring spectacle of a gigantic Gregor Mendel rising up from a vast feline killing field to wield hundreds of mangled cat corpses as marionettes.  Another indelibly disturbing image occurs when Francis and Bluebeard stumble upon an underground catacomb filled with decomposing and skeletal kitty remains, at which point they realize that, contrary to what they thought, the killer they've been tracking is responsible for the murder of, not just several, but hundreds of their brothers and sisters.

Images of mass graves and genocide abound in Felidae, as do references to eugenics and racial purity, and it is one of its flaws that its approach to allegory is just a bit too on the nose.  (And, seriously, all you Germans who are far too young to have had any direct involvement in the Holocaust?  We forgive you.  Honestly.)  Another for me is that, for a noir protagonist, Francis comes off as just a bit too bland and innocent.... bushy-tailed, if you will.  An over-dependence on catnip might have been a nice touch in this regard, and in lieu of that, we might have at least got a better sense of the effect that Francis' descent into darkness has had on him.  He appears to be less cynical about humans than the other cats in his new neighborhood (he is at first unfamiliar with the local term "can opener", which refers to humans in terms of what the cats see as their only useful function), and while he appears troubled by the human cruelty he witnesses, we don't really get much of a sense of him wrestling with any dissonance between his old and new perceptions.

Still, these are all minor complaints in light of what Felidae accomplishes.  Given both its concept and execution, its novelty value is guaranteed.  But that it goes beyond that to deliver such a solid and involving mystery, rife with powerful moments and some nasty shocks, is something to be celebrated.  One might think that having cartoon kitties prancing across the screen would work against the consistent atmosphere of oppressive dread this story calls for (even if those kitties are doing some pretty awful things), but the finished product proves otherwise.  Furthermore, on a technical level, Felidae is - if a little slick at times for my taste - gorgeous.  A glance at the various credits of the large, international crew of animators who worked on the film indicates that they were among the most accomplished professionals in the business at the time.  In addition to the solid character design and studied believability of the movements, the backgrounds are beautiful without exception, rich with color and lush detail to an extent that they sometimes threaten to upstage the foreground action.

Given that high level of technical artistry, I'm glad that Felidae was made in 1994 - rather than today, when it would undoubtedly have been done with CGI.  CGI is to me intrinsically post-modern, always seeming to be about nothing so much as itself - constantly, by way of its very resemblance to live action, calling attention to the trick that it's pulling on the audience as it's doing it.  As such, it might be fine for films that are just an episodic series of gags, but in service of a sustained narrative - especially one that requires the attention to detail that Felidae's does - it's just a distraction.  Drawn animation is definitely the ideal medium for creating the kind of enclosed reality that's needed for us to invest ourselves in a vision as quirky as Felidae's.  Given that, this film should stand as a testament to the viability of that medium in the face of the increasingly indistinguishable CGI features that hog our theater screens each holiday season.

Felidae, though in German (the original voice cast includes a number of noted German actors, including Klaus Maria Brandauer), oddly features an English language theme song sung by Boy George.  There also exists a perfectly acceptable English language dub, which can be found on the German DVD release (which, sadly, doesn't include English subtitles for the German language version).  All of this indicates that it was made with an eye toward an overseas release, which is not surprising given the obviously high financial investment that went into it.  Yet chances are that you have never even heard of it, much less seen it.  That it never received a theatrical release in America is a no-brainer; distributors would undoubtedly have hit a mental logjam trying to market a movie that looks on the surface like a family film but plays out like an angst-ridden version of The Aristocats as imagined by Eli Roth.  But surely there are enough people here in the states who would love this orphaned little cinematic kitty kat - who would take it into their homes, let it curl up in front on the fire, and then rip their throats out - to merit it's release on domestic DVD.  Anyone?

- Todd Stadtman 10/29/07