My Dog Tulip
My Dog Tulip
Directed by Paul and Sandra Fierlinger
At Film Forum
Runtime: 83 min.
The husband and wife animated team Paul and Sandra Fierlinger work in an endangered classical tradition that is uncannily apt for My Dog Tulip, an adaptation of the 1956 memoir by British writer J.R. Ackerley. The Fierlingers are not afraid to bring back the hand-fashioned artistry of animated drawing and its original-frame photographic process. (Paul boasts 116, 640 frames in the films press kit.) The effect is automatically nostalgic, but its purpose is personal. Pixar has scrubbed animation clean of its former human elementresulting in the antiseptic cultural nightmare of Toy Story 3. My Dog Tulip restores human feeling to animation, a post-Pixar miracle.
Ackerleys misadventures with his obstinate yet loving German Shepherd sounds precious yet it is not tweethere is grit in its charm. It becomes a story of matching opposite personalities and the sympathy that two souls exchange. The Fierlingers' work exhibits a range of illustration optionsfrom seemingly unfinished sketches (depicting imaginary asides) to realistic representations drawn in various, spare styles. Their methods dont coddle for children like so many commercial animated features, despite the sweet irony of My Dog Tulip frequently resembling the sketch-pad quality that Disney experimented with for the original 101 Dalmations.
Pixar and contemporary digital effects now tyrannize animation to the point that the Fierlingers adherence to the imagination becomes a demonstration of artistic freedom. One important result is the drawing of Tulip herself: within a few lines the Fierlingers dare a pastel-like smudge for a startlingly tactile, life-like effect. This makes My Dog Tulip almost literally touching. It should, ideally, be seen on a double bill with the 1988 film of Ackerleys We Think the World of You where Alan Bates memorably fleshed-out a middle-aged gay mans relationship with his pet dog. He confirmed the emotional richness of a life outside pre-Stonewall social conventions. Not even the finest animation can equal how Bates, fur-collared like his best friend, turned affection into revelation.