Anime Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space

[Sara]

[color=indigo][center][url=http://www.tamala2010.com/tamala/05/05-index.html][img]http://www.tamala2010.com/tamala/03/img/03-a.gif[/img][/url]
[b][size=1](click for trailer)[/size][/b][/center]

It sounds like a fairly innocuous title, now, doesn't it? Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space. A little odd, maybe, kinda quirky...but still, it doesn't sound [i]bad[/i], does it?

Background: Tamala is a kitten living on CatEarth (in the Feline Galaxy, no less.) She is very cute, a chain smoker, and [url=http://www.moviepie.com/filmfests/tamala_2010.htm]has been described (link contains spoilers)[/url] as "Hello Kitty as a Powerpuff Girl. Give her a dirty mouth and a violent streak. Now imagine she's autistic. And she's in superflat black and white animation. Now imagine you're on acid while witnessing this. That, ladies and gentlemen, is [i]Tamala[/i]."

There's a corporation known as Catty & Co. that owns some insanely high percentage (90+%) of...well, everything. This is the same name that we saw on the name of a letter carrier in the opening (which was set in in the 1600's or so. There's a cat with a mailbag, running across the countryside, delivering letters.) Apparently, they've branched out and now make everything from diet drinks to jeans to tomato soup.

Tamala, one day, decides to go to Orion. Yes, the constellation. So, she flies her little spaceship, gets hit by a giant meteor, and ends up on Planet Q. Shortly after this, she meets a male cat named Michaelangelo (whom, for some inexplicable reason, she calls MoiMoi.) He looks after her for the next hour or so of movie (major plot spoiler: [spoiler]right up to the point where she gets eaten by a crazed police officer dog.[/spoiler])

Planet Q contains both cats and dogs--dogs seem to be in the majority. Throughout the movie, as Tamala and Michaelangelo have misguided adventures, we are given updates (through broadcast announcements, shots of cat/dog riots, and the occasional commentary of a pair of cats at a bar. Or cafe. Whatever floats your rootbeer, really) on the chaotic status of Planet Q. It seems (mild, rather pointless spoiler, as it's intimated in the first seconds of the film, but doesn't actually come to fruition until the end) : [spoiler]Catty & Co. is in the process of taking over.[/spoiler] And in all this, Tamala is (spoiler: major plot gimmick of the film) [spoiler]their pawn, their spokesperson, or just generally somehow involved with them.[/spoiler] (Spoiler: Same as the last warning, but moreso.) [spoiler]Apparently (according to a knowledgable Zombie Dog. Or maybe cat) C&C sends Tamala ahead of them whenever they try to take over a planet. Why they do this isn't exactly clear. However, Tamala appears on, like, [i]all[/i] of their advertisting. Now, I mentioned that C&C has been going strong for the last several hundred years. Tamala isn't really five hundred years old...she's much close to being 150. Yes, apparently she was born in 1869, and is mysteriously reborn every year, after she gets eaten.[/spoiler]

Oh, and yes: (major plot, background spoiler) [spoiler]C&C evolved from a cult that was forced underground several hundred years ago. I believe the cult name is Minerva, it seems to be a sort of secret society thing. The big Minerva thing has to do with life, death, and rebirth. And they have a goddes figure called Tatla. By the end of the film, you're no longer sure who's Tamala and who's Tatla.[/spoiler]

So the story is about Tamala, sort of. Then it seems to be about Michaelangelo. Possibly it's about how corporate/consumer culture has reached religiou/cult status. No one I've talked to is really sure.

The animation style of the film is...well, if you watch the trailer, you'll see. It alternates between superflat black and white, crazy-detailed mechanical computer-generated dream world, and some occasional blasts of color (a red computer screen, a purple-tinted cafe.) I remember liking some of the music, but I couldn't tell ya what kind it was.

There's a lot of random stuff that just...I don't even know how to classify it. Cats in drag. Kentaurous, a police dog who's into BDSM and takes kinky polaroids of his pet/prisoner mouse, whom he keeps locked in a birdcage. A museum of extinct animals, devoted entirely to humans, and in the basement of which Tamala finds a freaky colored painting of cats being killed in nasty ways. A statue that is contantly harassed by a cheeky bird.

Has anyone else seen this? Anyone? Anyone at all?
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[Kitty]

[COLOR=Blue][SIZE=1]Well, no. I can't say that I have seen this film. However, I have a few friends who saw it, and they tell me the movie is very strange, and that I'd love it. But meh.

I had, however (before some of my friends went and saw it), heard much about it, and looked forward to seeing it. I have not got that chance, though. I basically know the entire story of the movie by now, having heard so much from my friends and reading those spoilers in your post, Lore, but I have not gotten a chance to see it.

Tell me, is it out on DVD/Video?[/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Sara]

[QUOTE=Kitty][COLOR=Blue][SIZE=1]Well, no. I can't say that I have seen this film. However, I have a few friends who saw it, and they tell me the movie is very strange, and that I'd love it. But meh.

I had, however (before some of my friends went and saw it), heard much about it, and looked forward to seeing it. I have not got that chance, though. I basically know the entire story of the movie by now, having heard so much from my friends and reading those spoilers in your post, Lore, but I have not gotten a chance to see it.

Tell me, is it out on DVD/Video?[/SIZE][/COLOR][/QUOTE][color=indigo]I saw it on DVD, I believe. (I don't know for sure whether it was DVD [i]or[/i] video, as I saw it in class, but it was certainly one of the two.)

It's done by a group called toL, if that helps at all.

Another fun description: "And although there is a resemblance to Osamu Tezuka's wide-eyed "Astro Boy," the film seems less a paradigmatic example of anime and more a hallucinatory, vector-animated Bosco cartoon; or perhaps a monochromatic Parappa the Rappa level featuring fringe Sanrio characters." Quote taken from [url=http://www.thedailyaztec.com/news/2004/05/03/Tempo/Looks.Can.Be.Deceiving-756556.shtml]this article (link contains spoilers).[/url][/color]