SFIFF53: My Dog Tulip

"Unable to love each other, the English turn naturally to dogs." So begins this charming, singular tale of a man and his dog based on the novel by J.R. Ackerley and brought to life by artists Paul and Sandra Fierlinger in a beautifully crafted animated feature (consisting of 80, 000 paperless drawings) which adopts different styles for different states of mind, ranging from what look like fully detailed watercolor paintings to bizarre sketches. With characters by Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave, and Isabella Rossellini, the story illustrates how one man's lonely life was turned upside-down (sometimes literally) by the arrival of a poorly-trained 18 month-old Alsatian bitch. It is funny and poignant (Ackerley says his 15 years with Tulip - 'Queenie' in real life - were "the best years of my life"), packed with dry English observations (petting the stud dog in its own home would have been wildly inappropriate, "as if one had intended to stroke the butler"; Tulip's expression when leaving a 'calling card' for other dogs was "businesslike, as though she were signing a check"). Humor can be a bit too anatomical and certainly too scatalogical for some tastes, but there is plenty to enjoy in this film besides, and if you love or have ever loved an animal as passionately as did Ackerley, you will respond to that sentiment in every frame of this sly, witty, unusual film. Here's the trailer: