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When animals dream
Hadn't really heard much about this but stumbled across the trailer on youtube and thought it looked interesting, so ended up getting it from Amazon.
This is a Danish werewolf type film that bears a lot of similarities to "Let the right one in", this too concerns isolation and growing up and is also quite subdued, set in a bleak landscape.
Here though it's a young girl who is just entering adulthood, and while everybody's body changes at puberty, hers begins changing in a different way to her peers. It all comes down to an inherited disease on her mothers side, who is confined to a wheelchair and is unresponsive.(although this may be due to drugs that a local doctor dispenses)
The girls existence is pretty bleak, she helps her father care for her mother, and both carers seem repressed and withdrawn.
On top of this she begins working at a fish processing warehouse (she lives in a fishing village by the sea), where the only ray of light is a young boy who she is attracted to.
Most of the others in the village seem frightened of her and seem to be aware of her family affliction, their hostility towards her plays a big part in awakening her animal instincts.
This film seems to divide reviewers, some seem to find it dull, while others praise it for it's sensitivity and beauty.
I'm in the latter camp as i found the film engrossing, even though i'm well aware of werewolf films lore i found myself wondering what the outcome would be, i liked the lead girl and was hoping things would turn out well for her.
The film is pretty slow but the photography is very good and the modern family setting and intimacy of the story gripped me.
There's not much gore and very little in the way of transformation scenes, instead it is quite artfully done and quite poetic, but this gave the film it's own identity and is what set's it apart from many cheesy werewolf flicks.
I really liked it but at the same time couldn't help feeling that with a little more in the way of blood and effects this could have been a classic.
So due to it's divisive nature hard to recommend to everybody but i will definitely go back to it in the future.
8/10
