The overarching theme of The Mouse & His Child is loss; loss of home, loss of family, loss of security. To begin with, the main characters are essentially helpless due to their being joined at the hands and requiring outside intervention to wind them, and this sets a tone of desperation that carries through much of the story. In the course of 83 minutes, the viewer will be confronted head on with (in rough order): abandonment, poverty, avarice, enslavement, loneliness, hopelessness, existentialism, and death. In Manny the Rat we have a villain who is exceptionally cruel, one of the more vile characters I've seen in a children's movie. More than anything it is a story about the oft-seeming hopeless search to find a place of belonging and love; this is what filled me with such aching sadness when I saw it as a child, and watching it today, it still does.
I'll confess that I have a little bit of an obsession with this movie because, in the 40 years since I first saw it, I've come to believe that it may have had a real influence on my life. There are valid critiques to be made regarding quality of animation, script, pacing, etc., but those things don't matter to a 6 year old. That's how old I was when I first saw The Mouse & His Child in a movie theatre in the summer of 1977. No other movie of my childhood-not Bambi, not The Fox & The Hound, not E.T.-came close to reducing me to the sobbing mess that this film turned me into. I had never cried like that at a movie before and never have since. Fast forward 34 years, and in the fall of 2011 I finally had a chance to watch it again when a transfer from a well-used VHS tape showed up on a video sharing site. Imagine seeing a movie that you saw only once at such a young age, and that affected you so much, for the first time in 34 years! When I watched it again, I discovered two things: one, my memories of it were almost exact to the last detail, and two, even at middle age, a cartoon about windup toys searching for safety can still reduce me to tears.
Anyone reviewing this movie should attempt to imagine how it might seem to a very young child who won't be apt to critique elements of the story that might seem "pretentious" to an adult. One of the scenes that stuck most vividly in my mind throughout my entire life was the "last visible dog" sequence: this was the first time I was confronted with the concept of "infinity" and the contemplation of "what lies beyond infinity;" pretty heavy stuff for a 6 year old, and this movie dishes out such heaviness with a trowel; subtle it is not. As with this scene, an adult might find the endless stream of trials the characters face in their quest for a home to be frustrating and tiresome, but a child is more likely to be imbued with a feeling of despair. And, for those who do find the movie tiresome, the story can be condensed quite neatly down to the opening and ending theme song, a tear jerker called "Tell Me My Name." In fact, just reading the lyrics of this song is almost enough to turn on the waterworks for me; subtle it's not, but affecting it most definitely is.
The movie tries to make it up to you with a heartening message about forgiveness and an ending that is admittedly very happy, and yet, the final scene is the homeless man we met in the opening theme wishing the newly emancipated toys well while he walks on down the railroad tracks with his dog, leaving you with a sense that, yes, things are going to work out for the Windups, but what about that poor old man? Where is his family?
It's hard to recommend this as a children's film, and yet there is something very brilliant about the uncompromising way it tries to present some of life's harshest lessons to its audience. This is the primary praise for the book it was based on, which I finally read only a couple of years ago, verifying that the movie is quite faithful to the book. I frequently see reviews written by others who, like me, saw it as a child who say things to effect of "this movie scarred me for life." Perhaps some mean that hyperbolically, but it definitely scarred me. Yet it was not a scar that never healed; rather, it was an experience that I believe might have made me a little more intelligent-and a little more empathetic to the world around me. If I had young children of my own I would think carefully before I let them watch this; for me, at the age of 6, I think it was probably too much to handle, but a child only slightly older, maybe 9 or 10, may have experienced just enough of the world that it won't quite overwhelm them, but may make them think... and it may leave them with a message about how important it is to be grateful and kind, rather than turning away from the less fortunate and contributing to the harshness of an often cruel world.
I'll confess that I have a little bit of an obsession with this movie because, in the 40 years since I first saw it, I've come to believe that it may have had a real influence on my life. There are valid critiques to be made regarding quality of animation, script, pacing, etc., but those things don't matter to a 6 year old. That's how old I was when I first saw The Mouse & His Child in a movie theatre in the summer of 1977. No other movie of my childhood-not Bambi, not The Fox & The Hound, not E.T.-came close to reducing me to the sobbing mess that this film turned me into. I had never cried like that at a movie before and never have since. Fast forward 34 years, and in the fall of 2011 I finally had a chance to watch it again when a transfer from a well-used VHS tape showed up on a video sharing site. Imagine seeing a movie that you saw only once at such a young age, and that affected you so much, for the first time in 34 years! When I watched it again, I discovered two things: one, my memories of it were almost exact to the last detail, and two, even at middle age, a cartoon about windup toys searching for safety can still reduce me to tears.
Anyone reviewing this movie should attempt to imagine how it might seem to a very young child who won't be apt to critique elements of the story that might seem "pretentious" to an adult. One of the scenes that stuck most vividly in my mind throughout my entire life was the "last visible dog" sequence: this was the first time I was confronted with the concept of "infinity" and the contemplation of "what lies beyond infinity;" pretty heavy stuff for a 6 year old, and this movie dishes out such heaviness with a trowel; subtle it is not. As with this scene, an adult might find the endless stream of trials the characters face in their quest for a home to be frustrating and tiresome, but a child is more likely to be imbued with a feeling of despair. And, for those who do find the movie tiresome, the story can be condensed quite neatly down to the opening and ending theme song, a tear jerker called "Tell Me My Name." In fact, just reading the lyrics of this song is almost enough to turn on the waterworks for me; subtle it's not, but affecting it most definitely is.
The movie tries to make it up to you with a heartening message about forgiveness and an ending that is admittedly very happy, and yet, the final scene is the homeless man we met in the opening theme wishing the newly emancipated toys well while he walks on down the railroad tracks with his dog, leaving you with a sense that, yes, things are going to work out for the Windups, but what about that poor old man? Where is his family?
It's hard to recommend this as a children's film, and yet there is something very brilliant about the uncompromising way it tries to present some of life's harshest lessons to its audience. This is the primary praise for the book it was based on, which I finally read only a couple of years ago, verifying that the movie is quite faithful to the book. I frequently see reviews written by others who, like me, saw it as a child who say things to effect of "this movie scarred me for life." Perhaps some mean that hyperbolically, but it definitely scarred me. Yet it was not a scar that never healed; rather, it was an experience that I believe might have made me a little more intelligent-and a little more empathetic to the world around me. If I had young children of my own I would think carefully before I let them watch this; for me, at the age of 6, I think it was probably too much to handle, but a child only slightly older, maybe 9 or 10, may have experienced just enough of the world that it won't quite overwhelm them, but may make them think... and it may leave them with a message about how important it is to be grateful and kind, rather than turning away from the less fortunate and contributing to the harshness of an often cruel world.