Cinepocalypse 2017: Animals

The title is reasonably honest, since there is at least one cat and several sheep in this film. However, the talking cat will incite murderous thoughts, while the sheep need better shepherds because at least one or possible two of them will be mowed down by speeding cars. Or something like that. Reality is a slippery eel to nail down in Greg Zglinski’s Animals (trailer here), which screens tonight during Cinepocalypse 2017 in Chicago.

Anna and Nick are quite the power couple (he is a celebrity chef, she is a children’s book author), but their marriage is still on the rocks. They have planned a sixth month retreat in the Swiss countryside, but it gets off to a rocky start when Anna discovers their flat-sitter Mischa is the spitting image of Andrea, the upstairs neighbor she suspects Nick has been conducting an affair with, which indeed he has. Things really start getting strange after Anna bangs her head in a supposedly minor auto accident (admittedly, the sheep gets the worst of it, by any standard of measurement). Her dreams seem to flow into Nicks, and vice versa.

As Anna convalesces in their cabin, she starts to experience lost time and feelings of paranoia. Yes, the cat also communicates with her, telepathically. What really makes her suspicious is the local ice cream shop woman’s resemblance to Andrea and Mischa. At this point, the film really starts playing games with our perception of on-screen reality.

One of the reasons Animals is so effective is that Zglinski takes the time to establish his characters and their circumstances before lighting off on a Lynchian bender. In fact, when he finally starts pulling the carpet out from under us, it is especially shocking because of the rhythms he allows Nick and Anna to settle into. Yet, the film soon becomes thoroughly disorienting, because we are never given signals as to whose reality we should trust.

Animals is darkly surreal, but it also has a healthily mordant sense of humor. Sadly, it makes you wonder what might have been, had Austrian filmmaker Jörg Kalt not committed suicide after completing the first draft of the screenplay in 2007, shortly after wrapping the little-seen (at least in North America) Crash Test Dummies. In the intervening time, Zglinski polished the script to a high gloss and executed it with remarkable fluidity. Indeed, his big mind-twists unfold unusually smoothly. Yet, for those in the know, the film’s several references to suicide are coldly jarring.

Birgit Minichmayr falls to pieces pretty spectacularly as Anna, while Mona Petri’s Mischa and Andrea are quite the emotional basket cases. As the relatively stable Nick, Philipp Hochmair really anchors the film and helps set-up the craziness of his co-stars.

Granted, Animals never really comes together at the end, but these sorts of films rarely do. To Zglinski and Kalt’s credit, it also happens to be smarter and more stylish than its mind-bending fellow lost highway travelers. Highly recommended, Animals screens this afternoon (11/9), as part of this year’s Cinepocalypse.

The Voices: Satrapi Tells an American Psycho Tale

Do you think talking cats are cute, like Garfield? Well, think again. Anthropomorphism can be a sinister business, but don’t worry, talking dogs are still cool. Regrettably, poor luckless Jerry Hickfang hears them both in Marjane Satrapi’s The Voices (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Forklift-driving Hickfang is clearly trying too hard to be liked by his co-workers at the Milton faucet and bath factory, but he seems harmless enough. Of course, they do not hear the conversations he has with his cat, Mr. Whiskers, and his loyal canine, Bosco. Mr. Whiskers does not suffer fools gladly. In fact, he is all in favor of killing them. In contrast, the dim-witted but affectionate Bosco always tries to find the best in people. Fortunately, good old Bosco can usually counterbalance Mr. Whiskers’ devilish influence, but it gets difficult when Hickfang is under emotional stress.

Despite what he tells his court-ordered psychiatrist, Hickfang has gone off his meds (hence the conversations with his pets). To make matters worse, getting the brush-off from Fiona, the British office sexpot, will hardly help his mental stability. Still, Lisa, her slightly more demur office-mate, continues to carry a torch for him. She might be his perfect match, but it is hard to envision Hickfang developing a healthy relationship, especially when we see his apartment without the happy haze of his dementia.

Along with Mississippi Grind at this year’s Sundance, The Voices ought to give Ryan Reynolds’ career a new lease on life. If nothing else, he ought to be able to find plentiful cartoon voice-over work, because his voices for Mr. Whiskers and Bosco are terrific. Who knew he could do such a pitch-perfect snippy Scottish accent for the former? He also does quite an impressive job conveying Hickfang’s naïve earnestness, along with his mounting mania. He is a tragic monster, in the Lon Chaney, Jr.-Wolfman tradition, who does not want to kill, but puts himself in that position through his own disastrous, but understandable, decision-making.

Frankly, it is hard to understand why it takes Hickfang so long to notice Anna Kendrick’s Lisa, but she definitely adds to the film’s energy and chemistry. Yet, the x-factor might be Jacki Weaver, who adds considerable humanity and authority to the film in her relatively brief turn as the over-worked Dr. Warren.

It is hard to imagine this is the same Satrapi who made Persepolis and Chicken with Plums, but she displays the same eye for visuals, employing color in bold and distinctive ways. When she contrasts Hickfang’s lunacy-tinged perspective with the film’s objective reality, it is quite effective. Cinematographer Maxime Alexandre gives it a warm, stylish sheen that somehow manages to feel slightly off, in the right way.

On paper, it all might sound rather sad and grubby, but it is actually a rather elegant little macabre tragedy. Recommended for genre audiences and fans of Reynolds and Kendrick, who want to see the thesps in a radically different context, The Voices opens this Friday (2/6) in New York, at the AMC Empire.