IF: Grow

An un-democratic gem

I started watching some Cheburashka clips with Yehuda. It wasnt what I remembered. What I remembered was a really cute animated character, and what it was was claymation with titles that kept on translating Cheburashka as "gremlin". Is that true? Wouldnt have mattered if he was cute - but Yehuda got scared of Genya the chrocodile. Called him "monster man" and wanted to turn it off. After I told him that it wasnt a monster, it was a crocodile- he called him "crocodile man" which wasnt much better and very oxymoronic, like this guy might just turn around and start eating himself.

So we turned it off and started looking for other soviet animation. I know theres good stuff out there. Ive had this book of Soviet Animation for as long as I can remember - maybe since I was 3. It immigrated with us - and the stuff in it was gorgeous - if only because it was (and still is) what I base my dreams on.

So we came across this:
There Once was a Dog (1983)


Why do I like this so much? Well, I guess anything foreign seems more exotic. Its just about a friendship... an equivalent American Animation would have rubbed me the wrong way - so I really have no solid reasoning on this- it just seems to have more levels to it. Levels that dont hit you over the head. The friendship is about 2 imperfect characters. They are both the same species w/ very different things expected of them. Yeah thats it - theres layers.

Sometimes democracy i.e. creating for the market, produces really crappy results for animation - maybe for the arts in general.