"Furandâsu no inu" (1975) TV series

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Yoshio Kuroda

Writers:

Toyohiro Andô (writer) (episodes)
Tsunehisa Itô (writer) (episodes)

Release Date:

5 January 1975 (Japan)

Genre:

Animation

Plot Keywords:

Anime | Based On Novel

Cast

Michie Kita	...	Nello (voice)
Reiko Katsura	...	Alois (voice)
Kuriko Komamura	...	George (voice)
Masako Sugaya	...	Paul (voice)
Taeko Nakanishi	...	Elina (voice)
Yasuo Muramatsu	...	Hans (voice)
Sumiko Shirakawa	...	Andre (voice)
Haru Endô	...	Nurrett (voice)
Hirô Oyokawa	...	Jehan (voice)
Masashi Amenomori	...	Michel (voice)
Iemasa Kayumi	...	Hendrick Ray (voice)
Ichirô Nagai	...	Noel (voice)
Tamio Ôki	...	Cozets (voice)
Reiko Takefuji	...	Narrator (voice)

Also Known As:

"A Dog of Flanders" (International: English title)

Runtime:

24 min (52 episodes)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Nippon Animation Co. Ltd.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Patrasche: A Dog of Flanders, Made in Japan (2007)

Soundtrack:

Yoake no michi

Moving and Beautiful

This movie is both intensely moving and beautiful. The artwork and animation are fine, though certainly not ground-breaking, even for it's time. The strength of this movie comes from the tragic beauty of the story and the haunting score.

I typically consider myself something of a cold-hearted realist, and watched The Dog of Flanders safe in the knowledge that it was a fictional story and that my masculine facade would be uncracked by the emotional story unfolding on the screen before me. It was I'm happy to say a misplaced confidence. Throughout the story there are light and dark moments but overall there is a slow decent into gloom. You feel yourself sinking deeper and deeper until you're totally submerged. As the snowstorm roars around Nelo there you are on the road side watching him pass by, and as he sits in the freezing church you stand amongst the pews observing. It's an almost ghostly experience, you feel as though you're almost with the boy and his dog in the later scenes, you want to break the silence and say something reassuring to them, offer them solace against the cruel world, but they can neither hear you or see you and the drama unfolds through a wafer thin layer of reality.

And then the movie's over. I sat and watched the credits, wiped the tears from my eyes and tried to decide what it was that was making me so emmotional. I thought about it for almost 2 days solid, and 6 months on I'mstill not sure what it is that's quite so captivating. It's the kind of story in which people will find their own place to watch Nelo and Patrashe. I urge you to watch this film (only the subtitled version though), and draw your own conclusions, and if when you too are sitting in that cold dark church in the penultimate act, you hear a sniffle from the next pew along, apologies in advance because it's probably me.