My Dog Tulip

My Dog Tulip

Directed by Paul and Sandra Fierlinger

At Film Forum

Runtime: 83 min.

The
husband and wife animated team Paul and Sandra Fierlinger work in an
endangered classical tradition that is uncannily apt for My Dog Tulip,
an adaptation of the 1956 memoir by British writer J.R. Ackerley. The
Fierlinger’s are not afraid to bring back the hand-fashioned artistry of
animated drawing and its original-frame photographic process. (Paul
boasts 116, 640 frames in the film’s press kit.) The effect is
automatically nostalgic, but its purpose is personal. Pixar has scrubbed
animation clean of its former human element—resulting in the
 antiseptic cultural nightmare of Toy Story 3. My Dog Tulip restores
human feeling to animation, a post-Pixar miracle.

Ackerley’s
misadventures with his obstinate yet loving German Shepherd sounds
precious yet it is not twee—there is grit in its charm. It becomes a
story of matching opposite personalities and the sympathy that two souls
exchange. The Fierlingers’ work exhibits a range of illustration
options—from seemingly “unfinished” sketches (depicting imaginary
asides) to realistic representations drawn in various, spare styles.
Their methods don’t coddle for children like so many commercial animated
features, despite the sweet irony of My Dog Tulip frequently resembling
the sketch-pad quality that Disney experimented with for the original
101 Dalmations. 

Pixar
and contemporary digital effects now tyrannize animation to the point
that the Fierlingers’ adherence to the imagination becomes a
demonstration of artistic freedom. One important result is the drawing
of Tulip herself: within a few lines the Fierlingers dare a pastel-like
smudge for a startlingly tactile, life-like effect. This makes My Dog
Tulip almost literally touching. It should, ideally, be seen on a double
bill with the 1988 film of Ackerley’s We Think the World of You where
Alan Bates memorably fleshed-out a middle-aged gay man’s relationship
with his pet dog. He confirmed the emotional richness of a life outside
pre-Stonewall social conventions. Not even the finest animation can
equal how Bates, fur-collared like his best friend, turned affection
into revelation.