00:00The Spanish animated film Decorado definitely ain't for kids.
00:04That's the word for stage, by the way, which is pretty appropriate.
00:07Arnold is an out-of-work mouse, living with his illustrator wife Maria in the city of anywhere,
00:12ruled and controlled by super company Alma, that makes everything.
00:16As Arnold's misfortunes mount, he increasingly believes that his world might not be real,
00:21and tries to find a way to escape from Alma's grip.
00:24So this is based on the 2016 short of the same name,
00:26and once again it's held by Alberto Vasquez, who held Unicorn Wars,
00:30and it massively expands upon his original idea,
00:33but keeps a similar art style, although it's in full vibrant colour, instead of in black and white.
00:38Although I'm not sure that it says any more than it already did in just ten minutes.
00:44So the obvious point of comparison is The Truman Show,
00:46especially as the mouse hero suffers from derealisation,
00:49the sense that the world around him is becoming increasingly surreal and centred upon him.
00:54Not an unfounded fear, as it turns out, as the head of Alma is actively plotting to steal his wife.
01:00But that could also be a natural reaction to the fact that he lives in a late-stage capitalist dystopian
01:05city,
01:05governed by a megacorporation, and the bleakly absurdist tone is very reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's Brazil.
01:11Mostly it's a commentary on middle-aged malaise, unable to find a job,
01:15and increasingly disenfranchised by the constant consumerism that he struggles to ignore,
01:20despite his medication boasting that it's made of 100% happiness,
01:24and later boasting now with even more happiness.
01:27Adding to a sense of artificiality is a purposefully so proper-like vibe,
01:31where each new terrible thing that happens to Arnold and those around him
01:34is accompanied by a melodramatic music sting, which becomes an increasingly repetitive gag.
01:39While it does feel very relevant at this exact political moment,
01:42I found Decorado's constantly grim and cynical tone got a bit exhausting after a while,
01:46because it hits the same note over and over, and there's an oddly unpleasant edge to it.
01:52That's not to say that I didn't find some of the dark humour funny.
01:55One of the big winners is Maria being taunted by a literal depression fairy
01:59that keeps whispering insecurities in her ear.
02:02And there's a bit of a perverse glee in seeing the Disney iconography sent up
02:05with the distinctive Mickey-like shadow of Arnold,
02:08but especially the subplot of him being a fan of a Donald Duck-like cartoon character
02:12who was a former child star that has now become homeless.
02:15The animation does evoke Ren and Stimpy at times with its deliberately grotesque style,
02:20particularly in the forest of addicts outside the city and the occasional moments of graphic gore.
02:25But the plotting gets complicated and messy, and it's about as subtle as a mallet to the face.
02:30Literally nobody can dream anymore, do you get it?
02:33I'd grown tired of this long before its despairing ending,
02:37a doomy conclusion that makes the whole thing feel pointlessly misanthropic.
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