This is the official submission from Latvia to the 97th Academy Awards for Best International Feature. It's also eligible for Best Animated Feature. Based on early predictions, the film won't get nominated for the former but most likely for the latter. The film follows the adventures of a black cat living in a forest, somewhere in Europe, possibly a forest in Latvia. It follows the cat as it encounters other animals, including various dogs, birds and others. Obviously, there is a long line of animated narratives that follow animals on adventures from Bambi (1942) to this year's The Wild Robot (2024). Since the 1920's when sound was added to film projection, the tendency, especially from Disney films, was to have the animals talk, either talk to each other, talk to humans or, as in the aforementioned 2024 film, talk to robots.
A film that was nominated at the 96th Academy Awards did such a thing. It was called Robot Dreams (2024). Except, in reality, Robot Dreams had no dialogue. It was only implied that the animal in question was talking to a robot. The fact remained that no recorded dialogue was ever heard in Robot Dreams. The only thing on the soundtrack was music and natural sounds. There have been quite a few, animated films within the past 20 years that have had no dialogue, including The Triplets of Belleville (2003), Wall-E (2008) and A Cat in Paris (2011). Each of those had a very distinct and different animation-style. This one has its own unique style. It was animated using computer software that's used for 3D-models and virtual reality.
The style renders the characters here a bit differently. I'm not sure if the software could render characters in ways that simulate how Pixar tends to render with textures that look more photo-realistic. Disney renders its 3-D computer generated images similarly with such live-action remakes as The Lion King (2019) that make the animals look as close to the real thing as possible. That's not the case here. For example, the fur or hair on the black cat doesn't look photo-realistic. Interestingly, we see the black cat visit a house in the forest where someone lived who made wood sculptures. The cat in fact looks like a wood sculpture that came to life and someone painted black. Most, if not all the characters look like this. They look like someone carved them out of wood, much like in Pinocchio (1940), and then a fairy brought them to life. Of course, the black cat and other animals don't move like wood sculptures. They move with fluidity and flesh that's beautiful to watch, along with the great vistas that director Gints Zilbalodis concocts.
Questions arise though after a while of what point Zibalodis is trying to make. It becomes apparent that his animation here is doubling for a disaster flick. It's not exactly clear what that disaster represents. On its face, Zibalodis is simply exploring how one might survive if one was caught in the wake of a mega-tsunami, which allegedly Latvia and other countries along the Baltic Sea experienced back in its history. In that, Zibalodis' film could be an animated version of The Impossible (2012). His point could then simply be to show the importance of people helping each other and coming together to survive forces greater than themselves, putting aside whatever petty squabbles might have existed.
However, given where this film goes and how it purports itself, the survival film that came to mind turned 40 years-old this year. Zibalodis' film could also be an animated version of Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944), if the inherent conflict of World War II were supplanted with feral animals' natural instincts to fight or flee from bigger predators. Some might argue that that film was essentially already made to some degree with Ang Lee's Life of Pi (2012). Lee's film could be read as more pessimistic about the idea of individuals stuck in a situation and having to work together to survive. Zibalodis is more optimistic in that regard.
Rated PG for peril and thematic elements.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 24 mins.
In theaters.
