Audience Member
Underneath its Japanese-kitsch exterior, this film is - weirdly - about how elements of the ancient Graco-Roman mystery religions have survived in modern-day pop culture. The baddy, Kentauros, and his friend are really Canis Major and Canis Minor, Orion's hunting dogs, Tatla is Demeter, and the scene where Tamala is resurrected in the advertising billboards would have been worthy of Alejandro Jodorowsky. It isn't really an anime and the plot is a distraction from what the film is getting across. Tamala is nonchalantly destructive from start to finish, a rare example of a female anti-heroine - as if Hello Kitty had grown up and developed borderline personality disorder - and it's worth watching this just for her one-liners. The DVD cover has a huge 'kegadoru' subtext that most will miss. Anyway, I liked this so much I imported everything t.o.L. ever released from Japan.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
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Audience Member
That was weird and slightly cool.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/17/23
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Audience Member
Extremely beautiful but probably the weirdest film I have ever seen, It didn't really have a plot or make sense.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
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Audience Member
Tamala was quite annoying
2,5/5
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/18/23
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Audience Member
From last August; I'm posting it here since it now seems to be hitting the Canadian arthouse circuit.
:fresh: :rotten: :) :o :D ;) :p :mad: :confused: :( :rolleyes: :cool: :eek: :down: :up:
Well, Fantasia is over for the year, and I saw one last film Sunday night... and it really is bizarre beyond words.
[url="http://www.tamala2010.com/"][i][color=#de7008]Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space[/color][/i][/url] an anime, mostly in black-and-white, with animal characters drawn in a very [url="http://www.tezuka.co.jp/"][color=#de7008]Tezuka[/color][/url]-esque style and mostly simplistic backgrounds, though there are a few elaborately-detailed computer animated sequences showing the Cat Earth version of Tokyo from some weird sort of pedestrian bridge...
Tamala is a "punk cat" on Cat Earth, living in Gonnosukezaka in Meguro-ku in Tokyo, but Cat Tokyo, on an Earth wherein one corporation, Catty & Co., controls 98% of the economy, though KFC appears to be around too, since there are several shots of a giant Colonel Sanders (last seen in [url="http://www.kentuckyfriedcosplay.com/ColSanders/ColonelAnime4.jpg"][i][color=#de7008]Project A-Ko[/color][/i][/url]) walking stiffly, towering above the tallest buildings. One day, she takes off for Orion, but her "mother" doesn't want her to travel there, so a ghost pirate ship appears (presumably an illusion, created [url="http://www.spscriptorium.com/Season3/E312script.htm"][color=#de7008]by using some candles, a mirror, and two squirrels[/color][/url]), fires a meteor at her ship, and she crash lands on Planet Q. She hitches a ride with a Porsche-driving cat called Michelangelo (whom she can't stop calling "Moimoi" even though he hates it) who takes her back to the city in which he lives, called Hate, which is crime-ridden and patrolled by a rogue cop dog called Kentauros, a sadistic weirdo who keeps a mouse called Penelope in a cage (the [url="http://www.tamala2010.com/"][color=#de7008]official [i]Tamala 2010[/i] website[/color][/url] says that, although she looks innocent, she's actually a mean mouse). There's also this giant statue of a Beret-wearing "Prince of Happiness", with eyes made from sapphires, which a swallow is always trying to steal, making the statue wince. (Something about the statue looks oddly familiar, like it's a reference to a French cartoon or book, but I can't quite place it.) And, umm... Tamala and Michelangelo go to the museum to look at exhibits of extinct species (including, for some reason, [url="http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/twins/"][color=#de7008]the identical twins from the famous Diane Arbus photo[/color][/url], who appear several times in this movie), bowling, and kicking kids that are being too cute. One day, Tamala and Michelangelo go on a picnic, followed by Kentauros, who attacks them... Michelangelo escapes, but Tamala gets decapitated and seems to be dead.
Then the movie gets impossibly weird... too weird for me to remember everything that happens upon just one viewing, in fact. There's something about a robot cat that is transmitted into kids' dreams, Kentauros gets defeated somehow, and, for some reason, the "Prince of Happiness" statue comes down... and a zombie cat who may be Professor Nominos, a university professor who had been studying Tamala and Catty & Co., shows up at Michelangelo's house, and explains everything.
I had been prepared to give [i]Tamala 2010[/i] just 2½ stars out of 5, because most of Zombie Nominos's explanations for what was going on had little to do with anything we'd seen in the movie, and movies shouldn't really end with characters giving the background of what is happening in the world. Like, for example, we learn that the Catty & Co. corporation is actually a front for an ancient religion called Minerva which figured out back in the Cat Middle Ages that they could gain great power by controlling all communications. And Tamala had actually been born on Orion nearly a century and a half prior (Tamala mentions some memories about a mysterious fire), and she had been used by Catty & Co. since 1869 to help popularize their products, and, by extension, Minerva. And Tamala undergoes a constant cycle of death and rebirth, keeping her eternally 1 year old. (She's back alive by the end of the movie.) Most of these would be incredible plot twists, except, since Minerva wasn't really mentioned prior to Nominos's 10 minute speech at the end of the film, it's more like a plot device that just shows up out of the blue. HOWEVER, the site mentions that this is only the first film in a trilogy, so I guess it's acceptable for them not to give this expository information until the end of the film, since it's setting up the next two films. The next one shall be set on Orion.
So, I think I can give it ***½/*****... visually, it's certainly one of the more interesting things I've seen in a long time, though sometimes it's so weird that it's just pretentious. However, it made a tiny bit more sense after I read the character descriptions on the official site (which has some English articles). Let's just say that it was interesting enough that I would definitely pay once to see the sequel should they show it at FantAsia next year. (Unfortunately, this film has yet to be licensed by a North American anime distributor...)
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
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Audience Member
Prob. the most weird (and original) piece of anime i've ever seen. Original & weird. 10/10
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
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