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Felidae Movie Review

Felidae is a 1994 German animated crime mystery film directed by Michael Shaack and starring Ulrich Tukur. It is a a terrific film that is surely a difficult watch.

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“I’m not blind.

I just can’t see“

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A wise old cat helps a young cat solve feline murders in his new neighborhood in a story that very much functions as a neo-noir film done in the animation medium. This is one of a few animated movies from Germany that are truly worth seeing and it is one of the most brutal and mature animated films ever made.

Let’s talk about that brutality. Yes, as an animal lover myself it was very difficult seeing some of the grisly scenes here, especially the imagery of dismembered cats. I would say that those moments were too graphic and almost done in poor taste. Still, this violence made the movie effectively scary and highly memorable as it’s unlike anything else I’ve seen in animation.

The cats as depicted here are very much grounded in reality. Yes, they talk and they deal with detective work, but they also fight, eat a lot and mate. That final action is shown in one very graphic sex scene that was extremely realistic in its meticulous detail.

But the detective mystery is the core of the film and its biggest selling point. By examining ideas of master race and genetic experimentation, the movie became not only highly sophisticated and thematically deep, but also distinctly German. The movie is immensely short, clocking in at just around seventy minutes, so the filmmakers don’t quite get the chance to explore these themes to the fullest extent, but they are still very much present and the dialogue is truly superb.

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The voice acting is very good while the characterization is also solid. It could have been even better, but for such a short runtime, they did a pretty good job fleshing out these characters. Francis is the typical hero in a crime movie, but the sidekick character named Bluebeard is a lot of fun and he’s the funniest character of the bunch in a movie that needed even more humor to balance out all of the darkness.

The film’s villain is excellent. He is over-the-top for sure, but in resembling the ideology of the Nazi leaders, he became even scarier. It was interesting that the movie dealt with cat-on-cat violence with no humans involved at a larger capacity and that ultimately worked as it entirely switched the animal cartoon formula on its head, especially those films made by Disney.

Felidae also features a solid titular song and a pretty great score that went to great lengths to emulate those noir pictures of yesteryear. This is a rare modern movie that genuinely could be called a noir picture due to its incredible atmosphere that was continuously dreadful and eerie. The dialogue was also stupendous.

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When it comes to its animation, Felidae is also quite strong. Yes, it’s not as polished as you would want, but coming from a European country not really known for this medium, this was stellar work. The character designs are strong and realistic while the highlights were those surreal, trippy sequences that were both weird and very disturbing. The movie reached artistic heights in those creepy moments.