Have you watched Labyrinth lately? The sequence with the fierys never gets any less weird, even three decades later. But if you were laboring under the impression that children’s entertainment had gotten less strange in this century, rest assured: there will always be something to surprise you. Take, for example, Even Mice Belong in Heaven, a Czech animated film about a mouse who gets into all kinds of trouble after her peers heartlessly mock her for pooping herself.
In an attempt to show that she’s… tough? Cool? Not a pants-pooper? the mouse goes to stir up some shit with a fox who lives nearby, but somehow they both wind up dead and in heaven, which is full of hot springs. There, Whizzy the mouse and Whitebelly the stuttering fox seem to be stuck together because they died together. I don’t entirely follow anything that happens after the pair arrive in heaven, except that there’s a carnival, and possibly some sort of celestial movie-going, and that foxes are not supposed to make friends with their food.
The summary explains, sort of:
A film about two mortal enemies – a little Mouse and a Fox, who after an unfortunate accident, meet in animal heaven. They lose their natural instincts and become best friends. Their wish to stay together after they return to earth comes true, but they are reborn into opposite roles. Thanks to the power of friendship they can even overcome what seems to be impossible.
This is not The Fox and the Hound or All Dogs Go to Heaven or Fantastic Mr. Fox, and it’s also not Ratatouille (not least because this is a mouse, not a rat, but also because Ratatouille forgot that female rats exist). It’s based on a children’s book by Czech writer Iva Procházková, and according to Cineuropa, “It promises, as all the best animations do, to delight and traumatise children and parents alike.”
Even Mice Belong in Heaven begins streaming on December 10th.
Buy the Book
Along the Saltwise Sea