Nyatta is not ready to have Jizō take away his big sister Nyāko to Ne-no-kuni, the land of the dead. The kitten grabs his sister's paw, resulting in her soul being ripped in two and leaving Nyāko in a state of limbo. The cats' mother then sends the two off on a mission to buy fried #tofu. Maybe now Nyatta can find a way to put Nyāko's divided soul back together. But first, there's a circus to visit!

 

ねこぢる草 is based on works by mangaka Nekojiru / ねこぢる (1967—1998) whose trademark crudely drawn #cats caused a ripple in Japan's underground #manga circuit. Nyatta and Nyāko continued their surreal adventures by way of widower Yamano Hajime after Nekojiru's tragic suicide in 1998.

Ester Krumbachová's feminist farce is a delight of many flavours. Ona (Jiřina Bohdalová) is already 40 and in need of a man. She remembers one from her youth, the handsome, slim, and very cultured Eng. Bohouš Čerta (litt. “God the Devil, Engineer”, played by the always great Vladimír Menšík), and knows that the one way to a man's heart is through the stomach.

 

Her cooking is immaculate. So are her looks and her apartment (all created by one-time director Krumbachová who worked as a costume designer and screenwriter). Unfortunately, her beau has turned boorish and stuffs his face with all but her and the furniture (is that true?). But cooking she can, and wanting she does. So she cooks and cooks and cooks up some more.

A little boy and his dog are invited over by the Man in the Moon himself. The trip to the Moon is a big adventure for the drowsy duo and they meet peculiar flora, fauna and men along the way, lifted straight from the Great Moon Hoax.

“You and I may dream of gold or grocery bills — but when a child slaps Morpheus on the back and says 'Hello, old man' — well it's a different story.”

– opening title card

Post-McCay's serial Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905) and pre-Fleming & Cukor's The Wizard of Oz (1939), William A. O'Connor is heavily indebted to both. Which doesn't make his short Art Deco-styled science fiction fantasy any less magical.

– Does he crawl on four legs? What does he eat and drink?

– I've given him water to drink on occasion. He would never eat me.

Barbara wakes up believing a fireman entered her bedroom through the window. Her father reassures her there's nothing, just a children's story. Years later, the adult Barbara (Caroline Loeb), grown up, withdrawn, living with her father (Dionys Mascolo), tutor, half brother (Pascal Greggory), and a persistent longing for her fireman, sparks a scheme that forces the fire brigade to come to their house and climb through her window once again.

“It's you.”

Flammes has a strange, stilted quality to it which reminds me, not in the least because of the presence of Geoffrey Carey as the restless American who travels with his own firefighter suit, of Raúl Ruiz's staged cinematic language. As in Ruiz's The Territory (1981), the characters drift in and out of space, and as in its half brother Der Stand der Dinge (Wim Wenders, 1982) we're left with wonderfully lingering performers who seem detached from, yet devoted to, their raison d'être.