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The Mascot (Wladyslaw Starewicz) 1933
For example, accompanying the cute dog is a collection of puppets that include an oversexed monkey, a decapitated clown, and a knife-wielding thief. The second half of the film shows the appearance of Satan himself, as night’s descent is marked with a hedonistic revelry. Clearly, before Disney’s modern animation cornered the market on what the medium could represent, there was not such a preponderance of unchecked cuteness. Something like Pixar’s Toy Story, which takes place in the same world of animated toys, really pales in comparison since, when contrasted to The Mascot, it appears overbearingly loud and frantic. To be fair, many of Walt Disney’s films (Fantasia’s “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence, the wicked queens of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty) felt truly sinister in the same way as Starewicz’s creations, but this film pushes farther into the inherent nastiness found in most fairy tales than Walt ever did. The story line, which is undeniably cloying, doesn’t feel nearly as maudlin as it might without the counterbalance of the mischievous antics and monstrous puppets. It’s unfortunate that today’s most similar animation (James and the Giant Peach, The Nightmare Before Christmas) fails to completely overcome the same sense of sappiness. I am unsure whether this represents a lack of sophistication in today’s audiences or an increase in the expectations of what an animated film should be, resulting in dulled creativity from filmmakers. In any case, The Mascot is a truly captivating and thoroughly enchanting work and a landmark in animation. **** 11/14/01Jeremy Heilman |