While it’s unusually candid about death, this Czech kids’ animation resorts to tedious quests and life lessons in lieu of a plot
Movies aimed at very small children tend to be a bit squeamish about death. So this afterlife-for-kids animation gets points for recognising that thoughts about dying do rattle around in the four-year-old brain (along with unicorns, Hula Hoops and poo insults). The film begins with a show-offy young mouse called Whizzy being chased by timid fox Whitebelly; after a dazzling flash of headlights Whizzy and Whitebelly wake up in animal heaven. There’s a nice moment when Whizzy realises she’s dead. “That fox did get me,” she says with wonder.
The animation – like Fantastic Mr Fox and Wallace and Gromit – is old-fashioned stop-motion puppetry (with a bit of assistance from CGI). It has that same deeply pleasing homemade aesthetic, as if you could reach in and touch every tuft of scruffy fur or knobbly twig.