our little brothers It's called "came here."
I really like Soviet cinema - "Mad Laurie" can be attributed here, she managed to get stuck, coming out in 1991. I really like children's Soviet cinema, or rather, Soviet cinema, where children play - "Mad Laurie" and here can be attributed. I adore such a completely special genre of cinema as a fairy tale, especially a Soviet fairy tale - there is also a fairy tale in Mad Laurie in principle, albeit with a great stretch. I am very impressed by the Soviet adaptations of literary works - classic, adventure, fantastic, etc. “Mad Laurie” falls under this category, being filmed based on the novel by American writer Paul Gallico “Thomasina”.
What else would you want? But with all this, the movie “Mad Laurie” caused such rejection that I do not remember for a long time. If you really love animals, this film is not for you. The film consists of two parts. After watching the first part, there was some unpleasant edge and a great doubt about the desire to watch the film. Gentlemen, this is just a horror of how animals were treated in this film, or rather with the main character - the cat Thomasina. In fact, the other beast also got it. Well, it just doesn't get in the way. I'm not a super-sensitive slob, I'm just any animal. And I am deeply disgusted by the abuse of them in any form.
While watching the first part of the film, a lump in the throat actually got stuck sometimes. I don’t know how it was all created and filmed, how the director (positioned after all as a storyteller director!) came up with the idea to shoot it all, or rather, to shoot it like this. And I still don’t know how such a movie can be classified as “films for children”. Technically, the film falls into this category. Such a film as “Mad Laurie” definitely marks the sunset and the last stage of degradation of once such a good intelligent interesting children’s cinema, created in the USSR for half a century, if we take as a starting point, for example, the famous masterpiece of A. Ptushko “New Gulliver”. That same good old children’s (not in the sense of children, but with the participation of children) Soviet cinema degenerated into such ugly forms as “Mad Lori”. Of course, when watching this movie, your eyes will not bleed, you will not go crazy, and in principle, watching it will not cause any special emotional fluctuations. For a long time to reflect on what you see, you probably will not. By and large, this film could be treated condescendingly, but many shoals made by the film crew, and, first of all, the director, do not allow this.
As already mentioned, in the center of the story is the cat Thomasina. She was treated rudely, unceremoniously, like a thing. It began literally from the first frames, which immediately caused the rejection of the film, which intensified in the future. The girl wakes up, grabs the cat lying at her feet, squeezes a little, then just as carelessly throws and runs for breakfast. A little later, the girl will run with friends to watch the ship arrive at the port. But without a cat, she doesn't want to go. The animal sits peacefully on a ledge under the window, and to show that Tomasina jumps to his mistress, the cat was clearly just pushed down - her landing at the legs of the girl was too swift and rude.
The children run to the port, and the girl keeps the cat under her armpit, like a wax with food. Take it with both hands, hold it with you! But why bother - grabbed one hand and forward. It gets better. To show Thomasina’s disease, the director’s team seems to have pumped the poor animal with some drugs, resulting in a sluggish, almost lifeless creature appearing on the screen. Of course, the stuffed cat could not be used, it was necessary to do something with a living creature. About the footage from the hospital, where the girl brought the “sick” I'm not talking to Thomasin, it was cruel. What do you think of the animal conversation scene when Thomasina came to see the sorceress Lori? The cat sits on the lawn, and around it are two dogs with clearly unfriendly intentions. They poisoned the cat a little. So why not ask him if he will ask him what he wants? Especially the director's idea.
In the second part of the film, the poor animal will also get it - they will scare a little, and break in the immediate vicinity of it either a pot or a plate. Well, it's just going to be the director, as planned. By the way, in this part, you will “enjoy” another scene with a small bear in the circus, which will be held by the skin like a tumbler, forcing you to hold straight (not slouch) on two legs, then the bear will receive a kind of knee kick. He may not have been hit for real (and the movie to make the viewer believe what is not), but it all looked just disgusting.
Rough film, very rough. In every way. In the yard of the early 90s of the XX century, the hero of Juozas Budraitis drives a modern car, but the interior of his house as if a century ago. “Mad” Laurie, she is a good sorceress, lives generally as if in the Middle Ages – both in terms of the house, and in terms of its decoration, and in terms of clothes. The girl, yearning for Thomasina, sings a song, and we see her sitting... in a slice of a large concrete pipe. What the hell?! And in the background there are cars on the highway. It's kind of ridiculous. By all signs, we are presented with something like antiquity, but some things show that this is the modern world.
In the second part of the film there is an absolutely incredible and ridiculous joint that places this film in the category not only “B”, but maybe even “C”. A scene in a house in the middle of the night as otherworldly forces cry out to winds and thunderstorms as Thomasina seeks to punish her killer. A girl wakes up and runs outside, and her father (Jozas Budraitis) wants to stop her. So, the operator, transferring the camera from the girl to Budraitis, is completely shameless, brazen and ridiculous himself gets (!) into the frame, reflected in the mirror! It’s especially “nice” to savor this moment while doing a one-second scroll. I've probably never seen that in a movie before. And this episode was left in the film, it was not remade and not removed! Is it laziness, inattention, or something else? And this was made by the man who created The Adventures of Buratino and About the Red Riding Hood? No comment.
It is clear that the film is not childish. The meaning of the film is also evident. But the rudeness of serving and shoals!
4 out of 10