A STEP BACK IN TIME - AND TO THE ANIMAL KINGDOM "FANTASTIC MR. FOX"

One thing I must confess: I love the fact that cartoons are no longer only geared to kids. I think there are quite a few of us who are well over 18 and either openly or secretly enjoy watching animations of various forms, be it the Simpsons to Japanese Anime. I mean, it’s the best form of escapism if you think about it… Technology in the olden days only allowed so much but now… Entire worlds and universes can be created with the flick of a computer (so to speak). You can just kick back and vanish into the new world for 90 minutes (or however long the film is) and forget the cares of the day… Now, I love the works of firms like Pixar for instance. They are, no doubt, the absolute rulers of the computer animation world. But Disney, once the ruler supreme of the “imaginary” world, are not lagging far behind. And last year they came up with a film that filled me with warmth, excitement and nostalgia to the cockles of my heart, because it was the animation (finally!) of one of my favorite, FAVORITE books as a little girl: Fantastic Mr. Fox….
Mr. Fox (voice of George Clooney) is a typical fox. He is a professional chicken hunter and damn good at it too. He is married to Felicity Fox (voice of Meryl Streep) and have a happy and fulfilling marriage. Mr. Fox is good at his job, but Mrs. Fox has a piece of news that is going to push him to reconsider: She is pregnant. So, Mr. Fox stops his thieving ways and gets a safer job (columnist in the Animal Gazette). Their son is born, Mr. Fox is successful and they even move to a larger house (in a large birch tree). In short Mr. Fox has everything his heart could desire, except… Well, adrenalin. Temptation presents himself in the form of his human neighbors, the rich and unpleasant farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean. With the large farms so nearby, Mr. Fox simply can’t resist “one last job” to the farms, to get some juicy chickens, geese and cider among other things. However he has not factored in the endless greed of the farmers. To his horror, they will band together in their effort to sniff him out and kill him, putting the entire forest – all his friends and neighbors – Mr. Fox must use every ounce of his wits and cunning to save the forest – not to mention his marriage…
It is a rather rare occurrence that your tastes in reading when you were a child continue into adulthood (unless you are some sort of child prodigy and kick the whole thing off by reading Tolstoy in the first place). But in one particular instance, for me, this has been the case. Two words for you : Roald Dahl. If you have not heard of it I highly recommend his adult short stories, I guarantee you they are like nothing you have read before. But as we are all about animations this week I want to go a little further back on the age scale. From Charlie and the Chocolate factory to James and the Giant Peach, nearly all the “majors” by Roald Dahl have been dramatized (for good reason!) and Fantastic Mr. Fox is the latest. I am so, SO glad this was done now rather than later. Because this has definitely become an animation for adults (or rather, adults as well as children). There are, I have to admit, quite a few things that were not in the original children’s book, but Wes Anderson (the director) and Noah Baumbach (who helped him write the screenplay the credits inform us) have kept the spirit of Roald Dahl to a “t”. As a fan at any rate, I highly doubt he would have minded…