Cat City (Blu-ray Review)

• Reviewed by: Stephen Bjork
• Review Date: Nov 21, 2023
• Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director

Béla Ternovszky

Release Date(s)

1986 (November 28, 2023)

Studio(s)

Pannónia Filmstúdió/Sefel Pictures International/Infafilm (Deaf Crocodile/Vinegar Syndrome)

• Film/Program Grade: B
• Video Grade: A
• Audio Grade: B+
• Extras Grade: A-

Review

Cat City (aka Macskafogó, extra precisely translated as Cat Catcher) is a landmark 1986 animated movie from Pannónia Filmstúdió in Hungary that was directed by Béla Ternovszky and written by József Nepp. It’s a spy film pastiche that mixes the affect of Western spy characters like James Bond and Danger Mouse with an Eastern Bloc critique of Soviet-style communism. Yet it’s not a lot East-meets-West as it’s an instance of Eastern self-critique seen via the lens of Western cultural tropes.

In the perfect Tom & Jerry custom, all of it comes all the way down to cats vs. mice, set within the yr 80 A.M.M. (After Mickey Mouse) on the Planet X. The civilian mice of Planet X have been threatened with extinction by multinational felony gangs of bloodthirsty cats, so the covert spy company Intermouse turns to their greatest operative Grabovszky (László Sinkó) with a purpose to retrieve plans for a tool that may cease the menace as soon as and for all. The Blofeld-style feline supervillain Mr. Gatto (János Körmendi) needs to maintain these plans out of the arms of his archrivals, so he provides his lieutenant Mr. Teufel (Miklós Benedek) the duty of stopping Grabovszky by any means vital. That contains hiring a gaggle of rat mercenaries referred to as the Four Gangsters, who’re consistently on Grabovszky’s heels. Yet generally it takes an abnormal Joe to save lots of the day, and the place the superspy Grabovszky could fail, the schlubby police officer Lazy Dick (István Mikó) will succeed. True revolutionary success doesn’t essentially come from the elites.

Cat City affords an interesting mélange of concepts that may’t be match into any easy bins. That’s partly as a result of distinctive nature of animation in each Eastern Europe and Asia. In the West, animation is ceaselessly organized into the broad classes of household leisure and grownup animation, whereas these strains are way more blurred within the East. Of course, the truth of Western animation has by no means been fairly so simple as it might seem on the floor. When legendary animators like Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Bob Clampett had been making the basic Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts for Warner Bros., they weren’t actually aiming them at youngsters, however they weren’t essentially focusing on grownup audiences both. Instead, they made their cartoons simply to amuse themselves—and generations of audiences had been completely satisfied to return alongside for the trip. In that sense, Cat City actually is a religious inheritor to basic Warner Bros. animation. Ternovszky, Nepp, and their crew of animators had been having enjoyable with the limitless potentialities of the medium, doing no matter occurred to tickle their very own fancies, they usually achieved an analogous form of common attraction for Hungarian audiences.

Cat City is replete with sight gags, in-jokes, puns, and different references (not all of which translate properly into English, sadly). It contains some surrealistic touches proper out of the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker college of comedy, like when Grabovszky is speaking right into a police radio after which immediately begins utilizing it as an electrical razor as a substitute. (In truth, ZAZ used a variation of that very same joke in Kentucky Fried Movie.) There are additionally a number of Tex Avery model gags corresponding to when the exhaust trails from a gaggle of rockets ties themselves into knots. There’s even a handful of Ralph Bakshi model postmodern prospers, particularly through the musical numbers just like the Four Gangsters commercial that convinces Mr. Teufel to rent the mercenaries. (In that case, it’s additionally a blatant elevate of the music from the 1947 Woody Herman instrumental Four Brothers, with vocals added in a similar way to how The Manhattan Transfer did it on their 1978 album Pastiche.)

All that, and it’s not even starting to scratch the floor of the methods wherein Cat City critiques each Soviet oppression and the feckless nature of the Hungarian paperwork. There’s loads to digest in Cat City, which is one motive why it has remained such a perennial favourite in Hungary. It’s a bit violent by the requirements of Western animation, though most of that violence is totally cold. Still, there’s a hefty physique rely by the tip. That’s one thing that has by no means bothered Hungarian audiences, and it shouldn’t function a barrier for Western ones both. Animation is way too multifaceted of an artwork kind to dismiss as being easy “kid’s stuff.” There’s nothing even remotely easy about Cat City, so hopefully Western animation followers can be taught to like it the identical means that Hungarian ones have.

Cat City was created by way of conventional cel animation and photographed on 35 mm movie by cinematographers Csaba Nagy, Mária Neményi, and György Varga, framed on the full Academy aperture of 1.37:1. This model makes use of a 4K restoration that was carried out on the Hungarian Film Lab in 2018 underneath the aegis of the National Film Institute-Film Archive of Hungary. The unfavourable was truly scanned at full 6K decision, with the remainder of the restoration work being completed in 4K. The ensuing picture is clear and free of harm, however with the entire high-quality element and grain intact. While the animation itself is comparatively easy, there’s loads of element within the watercolor background work—they’ve some actual texture to them. The total colour design of the movie is comparatively muted, favoring browns, tans, and blues, but it surely does get a bit brighter throughout sequences just like the Four Gangsters musical quantity. Thanks to the standard high-quality work from David Mackenzie at Fidelity in Motion, every thing runs at a constantly excessive bitrate, and there aren’t any encoding artifacts of word. This is one other winner from Deaf Crocodile that completely reveals off the fantastic world of basic Soviet Bloc animation.

Audio is obtainable in Hungarian 2.0 and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, with detachable English subtitles. Cat City was initially recorded and launched in mono, so each of those tracks simply apply a little bit of processing with a purpose to present a pseudo-stereo presence. There’s a little bit of assist feeding into the primary left and proper channels, however the actuality is that every thing nonetheless stays firmly anchored to the middle channel. When evaluating the 5.1 model to the two.0 run via a encompass decoder, there’s little practical distinction between the 2 (aside from the truth that they’re not degree matched). Either means, it’s a clear combine with little in the way in which of distortion, noise, or different points. The Hungarian dialogue is all the time clear, and the music sounds pretty sturdy. (There was an English-language dub for the movie, but it surely hasn’t been included right here.)

The Deaf Crocodile Films Blu-ray launch of Cat City is packaged in a transparent amaray case that shows a structure from the movie on the reverse facet of the insert, which is seen when the case is opened. It additionally features a 20-page booklet with an essay by Walter Chaw. There’s additionally a spot gloss slipcover available straight from Vinegar Syndrome, restricted to the primary 2,000 items, that was designed by Alessa Kreger. The following extras are included, all of them in HD:

• Audio Commentary with Samm Deighan
• Modern Training Methods (6:24)
• Let Us Keep a Dog (6:00)
• Where Is the Limit (7:03)
• Ahead of Its Time (26:53)
• We Just Made It for the Fun of It (30:39)
• The Director Answers: Béla Ternovszky (23:14)
• Interview with György Ráduly (45:02)

The new commentary is by creator and movie historian Samm Deighan, and she or he provides a broad historical past of Hungarian animation basically in addition to an summary of Cat City specifically. She explains the methods wherein Hungarian animation pulled from completely different creative backgrounds, together with references to American and European cinema at giant. She talks about how the recognition of animation in Hungary meant that audiences had been up for something, adults and kids alike. She additionally does her greatest to attempt to decipher a few of the puns and different references that don’t translate properly into English. In the tip, she sees Cat City as a left-wing critique of Soviet-style communism, in distinction with the anti-communist propaganda of the west.

Modern Training Methods (aka Modern edzésmódszerek), Let Us Keep a Dog (aka Tartsunk kutyát!), and Where is the Limit (aka Mindennek van határa) are all quick topics written by Nepp and directed by Ternovszky. Modern Training Methods (1970) is a ruthless satire of the athletic world, with its protagonist struggling the tortures of the damned whereas present process a rigorous athletic coaching program throughout a wide range of disciplines. (Success all the time comes at a cost.) Let Us Keep a Dog (1974) turns to the world of pet possession as a substitute, providing a list of assorted arguments in favor of proudly owning a canine—evidently, the canines ceaselessly handle to show the tables on their masters. Where Is the Limit (1975) offers a commentary on the world of animation itself, with its cheerfully irrepressible orange-skinned protagonist by no means letting the travails of being an animated character get him down—that’s, till he lastly figures out a technique to escape into the actual world, the place the legislation of unintended penalties all the time applies. There’s no info available relating to the mastering work accomplished on these three shorts, however they do seem to have benefited from the identical form of restoration efforts as Cat City—they’re in terrific form.

Ahead of Its Time is a 2020 video essay produced by the National Film Institute of Hungary, hosted by movie historian Zoltán Varga. Varga examines the circumstances behind the creation of Cat City and explains its significance to Hungarian animation basically. He additionally offers a quick have a look at the profession of Béla Ternovszky. We Just Made It for the Fun of It is a 2020 interview with Ternovszky, who additionally talks about his personal profession whereas overlaying the making of Cat City. It’s not only a static interview, although, as a result of it’s stuffed with movie clips, behind-the-scenes footage, and samples of the unique paintings.

The Director Answers: Béla Ternovszky is a brand new 2023 interview with Ternovszky that covers some comparable floor, but it surely’s centered extra broadly on his profession as an entire. It additionally contains some completely different clips and paintings than what’s seen in We Just Made It for the Fun of It. Finally, the Interview with György Ráduly is an prolonged zoom chat between Ráduly and Deaf Crocodile’s Dennis Bartok. They talk about the restoration course of in addition to a wide range of different subjects associated to the movie. (Ráduly says that the unique audio stems had been not available, in order that explains why the stereo and 5.1 remixes are simply processed mono.)

It’s an awesome slate of extras to accompany a lovely presentation of Cat City. Deaf Crocodile has been performing a useful service by making Eastern Bloc fantasy and animation available to Western audiences. From Alexandr Ptushko classics like Ilya Muromets to unforgettable Czech stop-motion movies like The Pied Piper to Romanian animation like The Son of the Stars, they’ve been constantly knocking it out of the park with these sorts of releases. Cat City is not any exception, and it’s an awesome addition to their catalogue.

– Stephen Bjork

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