Time to go from the convincing look-a-like to the genuine article with some proper stop-motion animation. And this is something of a historic example of such things, as the debut for Holy Motion Studio, based in the Netherlands. It’s been touted as the first feature-length stop-motion production in the country’s history, and far as I can tell, this is likely the first Dutch film I’ve ever actually watched. And I gotta say, on both counts, this is a pretty good introduction.
The story is a pretty standard child-and-their-pet narrative, with Babs (Hiba Ghafry) being given a pet pig named Oink by her grandfather Tuitjes (Kees Prins). Oink is hecking adorable in every single frame he’s in, even when he’s being unruly and quite literally shitting on everything within reach. It really gets into that Babe zone… okay, surely, there was a better way to word that, but we’re going with it; it’s reminiscent of Babe in how the inviting semi-rural setting combined with the natural cuteness of the animal itself makes its less-than-80-minute run time seem all the briefer for not showing more of this cutie.
The presentation adds to the effect as well. The expressive faces on the characters and the sinewy threads of fabric and hair give them the look of dolls you might actually find in houses like this, and on the technical side of things, I’ll admit that I was actually pretty impressed by how smooth the animation was for stuff like skateboarding and a car crash where a kid, somehow, ends up on the roof of the car that hit him. Not sure how that works physically, but it’s a minor nitpick next to how well this looks. And how it sounds, with Tuitjes regularly contributing banjo numbers to assist the montages and general atmosphere.
And much like films like Okja, the more intimate and personal bond created between the pet and their owner leads to some animal rights messaging, with an annual sausage-making contest looming in the background for our veggie garden-tending protagonists. It can get quite blunt as far as the conditions of unethical farming for cows, pigs, chickens, and the like, but I feel like the most potent statement made is strictly in regards to the pet arrangement.
When taken as a whole, the story really brings out the absurdity of giving farm animals to kids as pets, as if they’re actively priming the little’uns to be traumatised. Like, here’s this animal that we gave you specifically so you could bond with it and become emotionally detached… and now, we’re going to cook it up so you can eat it. I mean, yeah, that’s the reality of animal farming, and I’m not so suburb-privileged as to start grandstanding about a lifestyle I have zero actual contact with, but this really brings it home about how weird that situation is when kids and their attachments are brought into it, and how crappy the adults responsible come across as a result.
But more so than anything to do with activism or messaging in any overt sense, this film largely gets by on its charm. Like, this is easily one of the appreciably pleasant viewing experiences I’ve had lately, and just for that, I have a sizeable amount of fondness for this. There’s a few sticking points, like the depiction of sausage making (although that might be because I’ve watched way too many Ordinary Sausage videos lately; I’m half-tempted to rate this out of 5 Ruffalos), and literal shit being a reusable plot point gets a bit too ridiculous by the end, but for the humble and endearing family film it is, I liked it.
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