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Tamala 2010

15 July 2003

Tamala 2010 | Part of the Images Festival 2003, Toronto

As the opening night film, this received much Images Festival hype. What was really intriguing about this movie was how it was an analogy for Japan’s postwar economy as manifested through the Hello Kitty product line. The majority opinion towards it was lukewarm. I can see why, since it was rather wacky – but having recently begun to wonder what films might look like in a 100 years (example: Matrix Reloaded vs. The Great Train Robbery) I found the wackiness of this film illuminating. It should be said that its exotica is not so much the result of 22nd Century foresight on the part of the production team, but rather is because it is a film from Japan, and is thoroughly Japanese. As anime, it deals with their aesthetic obsession with cuteness, and successfully uses computer graphics rendering to enhance the visuals. The highlight of the movie was a scene depicting a mediaeval almost Bosch-like painting of slaughtered cats.