Flow forever changed the animation game. If a Latvian using free software can make an Oscar winning film, one can come from anywhere, for relatively cheap! Spain seems inspired to give it a go, throwing their hat in the ring with Decorado. I hope somewhere random is next: Oscar winning Somalian animated film, Mogadishoes? I’ll let myself out.
Decorado is basically all the random stuff around a stage during a play. It’s certainly how the residents of Anywhere feel. The Orwellian named Almighty Limitless Megacorporative Agency (ALMA) for short, looms over the city like a dark castle, owning the town and its path to happiness. Stuck in a forgotten part of Anywhere are Arnold (Asier Hormaza) and Maria (Aintzane Gamiz), two mice in their middle age rut. Maria struggles making mediocre cartoons for the local paper; Arnold is even worse, laid off by ALMA stuck watching Duck Roni (Alberto Vázquez, also the director) cartoons for comfort. Nearing eviction and sensing a divorce coming, poor Arnold’s only respite is hanging out with his friends Pollo Loco (Raúl Dans) and Ramiro (Ander Vildósola). A booze filled night leads to a glimmer of hope for Arnold: apparently Ramiro has discovered a way out of ALMA’s control: a path through the dark, fire ridden forest also overlooked by a giant owl, that could maybe break Maria and Arnold out of their sad state.
Spanish animation apparently gets right to the point. Alberto Vázquez is NOT a fan of corporate power, and tries to take it down, pixel by pixel. The attacks come in multiple forms on multiple fronts. ALMA’s plant is a twisted castle, with the foreman (Mikel Garmendia) looking like an Italian don mouse, with jewels taking whatever he wants. His and ALMA’s superiority bleeds down into the Anywhere populous, turning them into a dog eat cat eat mouse eat mushroom society. Artistically, the Duck Roni cartoons ALMA produces are the lamest version of Looney Tunes, all the pratfall with no substance whatsoever, like Ow My Balls! in Idiocracy. All residents compare themselves to each other: carrier pigeons get run over brutally by cars, and still laugh at Arnold because he is purposeless. Hey that unhappiness can be drugged away by the “happy” pills, which may or may not be tracked if they get flushed down the toilet. In fact, the only way to really get ahead is to give up any belief in dignity and just do the most awful jobs, like sewer security or distributing heroin like drugs to the rats living on the fringes of Anywhere. Decorado has no time to be subtle, simplifying it’s rhyme to amplify the noise it wants to make for the audience to really think about what we lose if we cede all our power to the pursuit of making money.
That pursuit will lead like 5% of the people to be very happy, but the rest either angry, sad, or scared. Arnold and Maria’s relationship is the movie’s North Star. Amidst the skewering of modern capitalism, there’s just a sad couple, once young and in love, now dealing with the realities of the stress of this life. Asier Hormaza and Aintzane Gamiz make you look past the mice part and realize this could be your parents, or your adult kids, figuring out if the person you chose to love really has your back for better or for worse. That’s some deep stuff for an animated film, concerns Spain lacks because they’re not wholly consumed by the US film industries’s profit margins. That also means the Arnold/Maria relationship can evolve and change, in sometimes very dark directions. The plot feels freshly uninhibited too. Decorado doesn’t have a huge plot twist you won’t see coming, but it does get credit for not undercutting its message with a silly happy animated ending. This story is for adults, and it ends in an adult manner, that has stayed with me mostly in impressed ways.
So for the parents of Spanish speaking kids wanting to take them to the cute mice movie, um, maybe give Decorado’s trailer a double take. This movie’s actually for you, and maybe instead is an animated film you can save for your 11 year old at home, convinced animated films are for kids only. This will blow his mind…and more importantly, lead him on a path to Akira, which will change him forever. And make you buy them a motorcycle.