"Animals" - Ted meets Donnie Darko with a gay twist?

[MikeScott]

Animals Trailer HD - (english) - YouTube

Synopsis

A Spanish teenager is forced to abandon the safety of childhood (and his walking, talking teddy bear) for the troubling world of adulthood, sexuality and responsibility in this wildly original story.




Review:

While it’s most memorable element will undoubtedly remind audiences of Donnie Darko or a more sinister version of Seth McFarlane’s Ted, Spanish filmmaker Marcal Flores’ debut, Animals, resides entirely in its own weird little universe. A nightmarish coming-out tale, the strange and surreal take a subdued backseat to dry humor, though a prescient uneasiness always seems to gnaw at the outskirts of the action. But Fores’ doesn’t manage to land the ship smoothly, and an overtly dramatic final few frames considerably diminishes the methodical menace established by the protagonist’s anticipated instability.

Pol (Orial Pla) is an introverted teenager that lives alone with his older brother, Llorenc (Javier Beltran), a cop that gruffly tries to keep an eye on him. Pol spends a majority of his time alone, playing or listening to alternative rock music and corresponding with a tiny Teddy Bear named Deerhoof, who only Pol can hear. Deerhoof, who speaks with a robotic inflection and in English, much like Hal the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey, hears all of Pol’s deepest secrets and gives him advice and comfort. At school, Pol hangs out almost exclusively with Laia (Rosier Tapas) and Mark (Dimitri Leonidas), though he’s oblivious to Laia’s attraction to him.

As Llorenc discovers that Pol is still conversing with the teddy bear, he buries the stuffed toy in the backyard. At around the same time, a new, mysterious boy named Ikari (Augustus Prew) joins the student body and Pol finds himself fascinated from a distance. When a girl Ikari hangs out with is found dead, Pol finally meets this brooding stranger, and the bond over the work of cartoonist Charles Burns. Slowly begins the dissolution of his other friendships, as well as Deerhoof, who continues to speak with Pol even though his physical form was dug up and launched into the same body of water where the dead girl was found.

As its title would lead you to assume, animals (humans included) are a main motif in the film, right down to the sound design, where blaring samples of music are used to transition between scenes, abruptly cut off to the sound of crickets and other various forms of wildlife. The unknown extent of menace at the onset of Animals recalls (but isn’t nearly as disturbing as) Carter Smith’s 2006 short Bugcrush. The puppeteered Deerhoof manages to be as sweet as he is creepy (aren’t all best friend relationships?) and he’s a striking element to a tale that would seem much more pedestrian without him.

Fores’ smaller observations pertaining to Pol’s soon-to-erupt sexual desires are obvious, if somewhat nonchalant, such as Pol’s desperate attempt to hold on to heterosexual desire by making a pass at Laia at a most inopportune moment, or his obvious titillation at Ikari’s pocketknife, with which he quickly finds he likes being pierced by. So it’s disappointing that in its final moments, Animals descends into unprecedented madness that feels out of place (and worse, laughable), when a much more oblique and subdued finale would have better suited the gloomy coming out of the possibly deranged Pol. However, Animals looks and sounds great, and cinematographer Edward Grau (whose credits include A Single Man and Buried) deserves credit for the evocative and moody imagery. Likewise, Natalie Ann Holt’s original score, as well as several tracks from the apocalyptically inclined postpunk band A Frames contribute to the film’s discordant, if not quite masterful portrait of late adolescent angst.

http://www.ioncinema.com/news/animals-review


The review mentions the fantastic short film Bugcrush. I loved that short. If it's similar to that I'll love it. The cinematography seems gorgeous, which is to be expected as it shares a cinematographer with A Single Man.


Another Review:

Stylishly shuttling between fantasy and realism (think David Lynch meets Donnie Darko), Animals is an intoxicating blend of genre and coming-of-age film as it explores that exciting, but troubling moment when sexuality enters into a youth's world.

Marçal Forés first feature film follows Pol (Oriol Pla), a Spanish, 17-year-old student teetering between the childhood universe of imagination (as evidenced by his best friend, an opinionated, English-speaking teddy bear named Deerhoof) and the adult world of reason, responsibility and sexuality.

Attending an English-language high school, Pol abandons a platonic relationship with his girlfriend for Ikara (Augustus Prew), a mysterious and moody new boy in the school. But this movie soon proves that it is far from a simple teen romance, as Pol struggles with his developing sexual drive in his relationship with Ikara as well as his love/hate affair with the plain-speaking, drum-beating bear of his safe childhood.

With gorgeous cinematography, pulsating soundtrack and several strong supporting cast members - especially Dimitri Leonidas as Pol's needling gay friend and Martin Freeman (of "The Office" and The Hobbit) as his sympathetic teacher - Animals is a refreshingly original film.

-- Raymond Murray

Very interested in seeing this. Seems right up my alley. It's being released on DVD October 21st.