Tag: Cats

Coco. Dir. Lee Unkrich. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2017.

Lee Unkrich’s Coco (2017) is built on similar foundations of recent Disney/Pixar releases alike Moana(2016) and The Good Dinosaur(2015); twelve year old Miguel’s (Anthony Gonzalez) dream of becoming a musician compromises his family’s ban on music and their hope for Miguel to continue the family business.[i]Yet what may feel like recognisable narrative territory, the enriched setting of traditional Mexico…

15th January 2019
The Cat Returns. Dir. Hiroyuki Morita. Toho. 2002.

The Cat Returns (2002) is a Japanese fantasy film animated by Studio Ghibli, which follows dissatisfied schoolgirl Haru Yoshioka, who after saving a cat from a road collision, discovers she has the ability to talk to cats. Upon saving the feline it is revealed that this individual is none other than Prince Lune, Heir to the…

14th January 2019
Barnyard. Dir. Steve Oedekerk. Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies. 2006.

Steve Oedekerk’s Barnyard uses witty puns and gags in order to satirise the idea of the animal as a fixed definition, in that an animal can never truly be anything more than a representation of the attributes that humanity typically associates with its species.

14th December 2018
Coco. Dir. Lee Unkrich. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2017.

Helping Miguel Rivera navigate the Land of the Dead as he seeks to find his great-great-grandfather is Dante, the stray Xoloitzcuintli dog. However, when it is revealed that Dante is instead a “mythical” and “powerful” alebrije or spirit guide, this subsequently exposes a tension between his two identities. This scene in particular sees Miguel use…

14th December 2018
Alice in Wonderland. Dir. Tim Burton. Walt Disney Pictures. 2010.

The film draws on the viewer’s knowledge of the Disney original in the tea party scene, making it a ruin of what it once was, and presenting the Hatter as even more ‘mad’. He is seen for the first time in a close up shot, slowly looking up towards the camera, vacantly staring into the…

12th December 2018
Gone Girl. Dir. David Fincher. 20th Century Fox. 2014.

Stereotypically, cats are represented as sly, sexy, intelligent, manipulative and mysterious creatures, and all of these characteristics are embodied in Gone Girl’s (dir. David Fincher, 2014) complex anti-heroine Amy Dunne. In order to understand Amy’s immensely complicated character, who only exists in flashbacks during the film’s opening scene, the film projects Amy’s character onto her husband Nick’s…

12th December 2018
Cinderella. Dir. Sir Kenneth Branagh . Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2015.

During Ella’s journey from a happy, sweet child, to the mourning servant of her stepfamily, to cherished wife of the King, her fundamental characteristics are consistent. Her mother tells her to ‘have courage and be kind’. The message is not subtle: this exact phrase is repeated another 9 times in the film. For the sceptics…

12th December 2018
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Dir. Chris Columbus. Warner Bros. 2002.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets utilizes horror film narratives and their depiction of monstrous animals in order to reveal a deeper complex message regarding human-animal relationships. The franchise’s reliance on Ophidiophobia acts to highlight the negative animalisation assigned to animals such as snakes, whilst the treatment of the Basilisk by humans in the film…

12th December 2018
The Golden Compass. Dir. Chris Weitz. Warner Bros. Pictures. 2007.

The Golden Compass is set in a parallel universe where old fashioned styles (like cars and dresswear) mixes with modern technology, such as electric motors. In this universe everyone has what is called a daemon, who act as guides to their masters. These daemons take form in a specific animal that best represents their master’s personality.…

21st May 2018
The Squid and the Whale. Dir. Noah Baumbach. Sony Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn Films, Destination Films. 2005.

The Squid and the Whale is a film all about conflict. It tracks the divorce of a couple of New York intellectuals and the effect it has on their two sons. The film opens with a line from the younger boy, Frank; ‘mom and me versus you and dad,’ cleverly summing up the central…

21st May 2018