Deaf Crocodile Films: Cat City (1986) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Deaf Crocodile Films

 
Hungarian animator Béla Ternovszky first began working in short films in the early 1960s before eventually working his way up through television notably on the series Legacy from the Future - Fantastic Adventures of Family Mézga and Gusztáv, forming a tenure at Infafilm and generating short film works of his own usually penned by screenwriter-director József Nepp.  After generating a sizable body of short film and television work, the next logical step for Ternovszky was of course to mount a theatrical animated feature film and with the help of screenwriter Nepp and recurring Hungarian animation producer and Pannónia Filmstúdió stalwart Román Kunz, the three forces joined together to create one of Hungary’s most successful and beloved animated films of all time Macskafogó or as it has been translated in the west Cat City.

 
Given a new 4K digital restoration by the Film Archive of Hungary and picked up for its first-ever domestic blu-ray disc release by Deaf Crocodile Films, Cat City is a parody of everything from Star Wars to James Bond to old Disney cartoons as well as channeling The Manhattan Transfer in the song The 4 Gangsters.  Set in a near distant Metropolis inspired dystopian future dated 80AMM (After Mickey Mouse) on the Planet X where cats and rats have joined forced in a war against the mice, the film concerns bionic-handed evil cat Mr. Teufel (Miklós Benedek) and his sinister plot to infiltrate and eliminate hidden mice clans.  

Meanwhile secret agent mouse Nick Grabovsky (László Sinkó) is tasked with his own counteroffensive operation to overthrow the criminal cat gang not knowing a ragtag group of rats dubbed The 4 Gangster are hot on his tail in a smorgasbord of musical numbers touching on everything from Euro-disco, Mexican vampire bats performing ensemble music together and a Princess Leia type damsel in distress.

 
With hints of Don Bluth who himself would go on to make An American Tail in the same year involving battles between distinctly Eastern European cats vs. mice, elements of the James Bond inspired British television series Danger Mouse and a metaphor itself for a country in the process of breaking away from the Soviet Union, Cat City is one of the high watermarks of Hungarian theatrical featured animation.  

Brilliantly detailed, realistically animated with particular attention to anthropomorphic features of the characters, filmed by three cinematographers with a phantasmagorical original score of music and songs by Tamás Deák, the film is an audiovisual smorgasbord which explodes across the screen like fireworks.  A powerful antidote to the neverending slew of Disney or Warner Brothers fare as well as a compendium of tips of the hat to numerous American movies, it serves as a richly populated slice of distinctly adult animation with more than a few eyebrow raising things in it that’ll fly over kids’ heads.

Released in Hungary in 1986 before a film festival stint in the US in 1987 followed by a tape release and a hugely successful 1988 Soviet Union release, Cat City became an instant hit and soon found itself replayed on syndicated television.  While the US version changed the names and lyrics of some of the songs to eliminate socialist leanings and critical reception of the film likely influenced by official cultural policy slammed it as being a cliched collection of tropes, the film nevertheless developed a global cult following and went on to spawn a sequel film in 2005.  

In the years since, thanks in part to Deaf Crocodile’s lovingly restored blu-ray release stacked with extras including three of Béla Ternovszky’s earlier short films and a behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of the main feature, Cat City has endured as one of the quintessential examples of Hungarian hand drawn animation technically and conceptually and further points to Eastern Europe as one of the unsung leaders in world cinema animation.

--Andrew Kotwicki