Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: EVEN MICE BELONG IN HEAVEN [Annecy Animation Festival 2021 -Virtual]

The predator and the prey have an inherent structure but the way "Even Mice Belong In Heaven" [Screening Events] approaches its path, it is more an existential journey of self and tolerance than anything else. While passively plotted, it does show the nature of light and dark in many ways as a form of conditioning. The film follows a mouse and a fox who end up in the afterlife not quite ready to move on. There is almost an interesting parallel with the recent Japanese animated film: "Poupelle Of Chimney Town". What is interesting here is the structure by which the characters must prove themselves. The animation is done with puppets with obviously some slight CGI enhancements but what fuels the story is its optimism. Certain journeys have their own specific codas like one where they walk through a desolate plain, or on water, or through a forest. The mouse and fox have guideposts which lie their path before them but these two characters end up taking the road less traveled because they are still working out their former life's issues.

While much of the bickering is fairly simplistic, there is an emotional resonance that connects on a visceral level when each of the characters recalls their trauma and what might have gotten them there. There are constructs of a haunted house and a carnival event which work very well without moving too dark and risking alienating the audience. As the film moves towards its final act, there is a circle of life motif, that allows the characters to look beyond what they see. In this way "Even Mice Belong In Heaven" is undyingly optimistic to the point that each of the character's fears and redemption dive into one another and the result is effective if not expected. The film is an interesting diatribe of the notion of a "trust fall" (if you will) and some of the scale structures (especially the mouse talking to a crocodile --- or their journey across a bridge) are quite telling ad riveting because seeing all these animals functioning in a post-mortal world provides a skewed dilemma of what "survival of the fittest" means. B

By Tim Wassberg