Herman H. Rott is a rat. He prowls the streets, drinks and pukes his way through life. One day when he has hit rock bottom, he attracts the attention of a cat that spontaneously decides to move in with him and help him straighten out his life. In a first step, the cat replaces Herman's metal sounds from the record player by classical music – only to be kicked out of the house by Herman. But the cat doesn't give up and reappears the next morning, serving fresh espresso instead of red wine. The apartment, too, is tidied up beyond recognition. It is inevitable that all this leads to further conflict. Chintis Lundgren’s animated cat-and-rat film about opposites attracting each other has won several awards. It also shows that no alcohol is no solution either.
Chintis Lundgren is an Independent animator and painter originally from Estonia but is at the moment residing in Croatia. Animals are normally featured in most of her animations and illustrations and are usually placed in absurd if not hilarious situations. And based on what I have seen from her animations, I believe that Chintis favours traditionally hand drawn animation (When considering how the lines of each frame are always in constant motion, even the backgrounds themselves). It is still amazing however to see how fluid her character animations are despite such a choice in animation style. Chintis also tends to use a very warm looking colour palette in her works (With a lot of red, brown, pink, yellow and cream).
While it might seem like the typical odd couple tale, this animation was hilariously done in its execution and elicited more than its fair share of laughs from the audience. And after going back to her past works, it is interesting to see some of the running gags that she places in her works, such as the trio of bunnies that abruptly begin singing christmas carols, be they on or offscreen. It is also lovely to see that their stories actually continue outside of these individual animations and are actually featured in illustrations and other animations (As little cameos).
Chintis clearly loves all her characters and enjoys reusing them and expanding upon their stories whenever she can.
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