NYICFF ’20: Magic Boy

Some fantasy tropes are pretty consistent across cultures. For instance, magic really isn’t something you can pick up in your forties through some continuing education classes. You really need to learn it young, but from a gray-haired oldster. That is exactly what Sasuke sets out to do after he barely survives an encounter with a shape-shifting demon queen in Akira Daikuhara & Taiji Yabushita’s Magic Boy, which screens during the 2020 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

The Toei-produced Magic Boy holds the distinction of being the first anime feature ever theatrically distributed in America, by MGM no less. That was back in 1961, two years after its Japanese release. There is definitely a pronounced Disney influence, but it gets refracted through the anime prism in an appealingly eccentric way.

As the film opens, Sasuke is more Nature Boy than Magic Boy, living in secluded harmony with his beautiful older sister Oyu and a menagerie of woodland animals, including bears, deer, and monkeys (where is this forest, anyway?). However, tragedy strikes when one of them (ever so coincidentally the mother of a young fawn) is eaten by a salamander monster that morphs into the evil, long-haired Yakusha.

Realizing how badly he matched up against the demon, Sasuke sets out to learn magic from a reclusive hermit, which is a perfectly reasonable strategy in a fantasy film. That rather inconveniently means Sasuke will leave Oyu alone and vulnerable to the attacks of the bandits aligned with the evil witch for several years. Fortunately, she catches the protective (and perhaps romantically interested) eye of righteous samurai clan-general Sanada Yakimura (he was a real cat) during one of his scouting missions.

NYICFF ’20: Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale

Totalitarian regimes cannot afford to let children grow up to be free-thinkers, so they try to beat them into obedience while they are still children. That means schools are more often a place of indoctrination than education. Young Fritzi becomes the focus of her teacher’s wrath through no fault of her own. However, history is on her side in Matthias Bruhn & Ralf Kukula’s animated feature, Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale, which screens during the 2020 New York International Film Festival.

Fritzi and her best friend Sophie are so close, they are almost like sisters. That is nearly as true for their mothers, so Fritzi and her family agree without hesitation to look after Sophie’s dog Sputnik while she and her mom vacation in Hungary. They had heard reports that the Hungarian border was becoming rather porous during the summer of 1989, but they never gave it much thought until Sophie fails to return for the start of class.

Their venomous teacher, Ms. Liesegang openly condemns Sophie for abandoning the socialist state in class, but Fritzi naively defends her friend. That immediately puts her on the outs with Liesegang and the school’s Young Pioneer enforcers. Soon, only Bela, the hipster son of democracy activist parents will talk to her. Fritzi still does not fully understand the hypocrisy and oppression of the East German system, but she will learn the hard way when she innocently attempts to find her way to the Federal Republic, to reunite Sophie and Sputnik.

This is 1989, so there is a happy ending waiting for Fritzi, but getting there will not be easy. Along the way, she gets swept up in the Monday Demonstrations at St. Nicholas, first as an inadvertent bystander, but eventually as an active participant. Of course, we know where it is all headed, but Beate Volcker’s adaptation of Hannah Schott & Peter Palatsik children’s novel vividly captures the hope, fear, and uncertainty of the era. They also manage to shoehorn a girl-and-her-dog story into the grand historical events of 1989 quite nicely.

NYICFF ’20: The Prince’s Voyage

Prince Laurence is quite a distinguished-looking primate, even more so than Dr. Zaius in the Planet of the Apes movies. He is a warrior, an inventor, an explorer, and the leader of his people. He also finds himself a stranger in a strange land in Jean-Francois Laguionie & Xavier Picard’s animated feature The Prince’s Voyage, which screens during the 2020 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Prince Laurence always believed there were lands beyond his realm. Following a pitched battle, he fatefully washes up on its shores. Young Tom saves his life, seeking help from the eccentric scientists squatting in an abandoned museum and their kindly servant. Prof. Victor Abervrach considers the Prince vindication of his widely mocked theories, so he intends to introduce the regal Laurence at an upcoming academic conference. The Prince has intuitive contempt for Abervrach, but he quickly develops a deep rapport with Tom, who very much resembles Kom, in whom he took a similarly paternal interest in during Laguionie’s earlier feature, A Monkey’s Tale (but think of Voyage as more of a companion film than a sequel).

Eventually, the Prince starts exploring the hyper-industrial Nioukos megapolis, with Tom as his guide. However, he eventually learns there is more to this world than even its pompous scientific community realizes. In fact, the comparison to Planet of the Apes is rather apt, except the human outsider is a monkey—and the ruling Nioukos monkeys are too. Admittedly, Laguionie & co-writer Anik Leray make some rather heavy-handed points regarding the perils of living out of synch with nature, but the fable-like atmosphere and strange-but-familiar environment are a pleasure to sink into.

NYICFF ’20: On-Gaku—Our Sound

Kenji and his friends have absolutely no musical training, but they can pound things. That is more than good enough for punk rock. Somehow, the three knuckleheads tap into something raw, primal, and transformative when they take up instruments in Kenji Iwaisawa’s anime feature manga-adaptation On-Gaku: Our Sound, which screens during the 2020 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Kenji is a brawny high school meathead, whose primary satisfaction has come from rumbling with school rivals, but even that now leaves him bored. He and his running mates Oota and Asakura swipe two electric basses and a drum set from the school band room and suddenly they are beating out a hypnotic pulse. They christen themselves Kubujutsu (a martial arts reference), but soon learn there is also a folk-rock trio on-campus named Kubitjutsu (a fine arts reference), led by the confidence challenged Morita.

Of course, the sensitive folkies are terrified when they hear Kenji and his pals are looking for them, but it turns out both groups really dig each other’s music. They might even both play the town’s rock festival, if Morita and Kenji do not mess things up, in their own distinctly idiosyncratic ways.

In terms of animation style and attitude, On-Gaku shares a kinship with Beavis & Butthead, but the humor is much drier—like bone-dry. At times, Kenji and his mates are so laconic, viewers will start to wonder if the film is stuck. Yet, whenever that tension is released, the effect is hilarious.