CANNES 2006 Critics Week / Norway
Jimmy the Elephant in the footsteps of Fritz the Cat
by Annika Pham
Adult-oriented animated features have been popular choices this year for opening and closing sidebar sections at Cannes: after Denmark’s Princess [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which opened the Director’s Fortnight, Free Jimmy [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the Norwegian/UK CGI animated film for over-15 audiences, was chosen to close the Critics’ Week. The last animated film selected for the sidebar was Fritz the Cat in 1972.
The Camera d’Or contender is the creation of Norwegian artist and illustrator Christopher Nielsen, who transferred his distinctive style and satirical and subversive view of society into his first full-length animated feature. The film starts out strong, with an animal activist team on a special mission to rescue imprisoned rabbits, mice and a cat but the mission turns sour when the freed cat eats the mice and hardcore activist bulldog Sonia (Samantha Morton) kills the cat.
The action then moves to the story’s central characters, three anti-heroes enlisted by their mate Roy Arnie (Woody Harrelson) to work in a circus where the star attraction, Jimmy the elephant, is kept "happy" with drugs. Jimmy escapes and is chased not only by the four "heroes", but also the Lappish mafia because he is loaded with stolen heroin. The animal activists join in to "Free Jimmy", and everybody ends up in the barren landscape of the Norwegian moors where a moose befriends and helps Jimmy.
The film – with its "sex, drugs and rock’n’roll" feel, mixed with comic strip violence and offensive characters – is intriguing at first and generally well served by an English script penned by Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead). Although anti-Disney in its political incorrectness, a few references to Dumbo – one of the director’s favourite films – are inescapable. Too bad the plot gradually loses its interest and comical moments become too rare. It should, however, attract a core audience of video-addicted teenagers and lovers of grunge culture.
Free Jimmy was produced by Norway’s Storm Studio in co-production with Sarah Radclyffe in the UK. Sales are being handled by The Works.
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