My Little Goat
a review by saulgoodman
a review by saulgoodman
My Little Goat is a ten-minute exhibition of sorrowful artifice. The uncanny nature of stop-motion supplements the several dichotomies present, perhaps misleading all of us into expecting a morbid, gory retelling of the classic Brother Grimm fairy tale. A cast mostly full of fluffy sheep, both the soft look of their designs and their attached nature of harmlessness and innocence should do nothing but permeate wholesomeness in the short film.
Yet, it only makes the grimness only starker in contrast. Finding himself dazed and confused, Toroku finds himself loomed over by disfigured baby sheep. The gentleness of their wool does little to hide their Frankenstein monster-esque scars, as if director Tomoki Misato hot-glued wool felt onto road-kill and used them as reference for their designs. Raw, pinkish flesh, ugly scars and lazy eyes infect the baby sheep and ominous music softly plays as they approach the horrified human child, giving into an expectation of a B-rated gory, flesh-eating ending.
Though the horrific dichotomies are effective, the unexpected, sorrowful narrative and heavy themes are what define My Little Goat. Contrast is born out of the gentle nature of baby sheep and the zombified depiction of them present here, but Tomoki Misato doesn't necessarily remove their gentle nature. Rather, their disfigured appearances only accentuate their nature, made more apparent with the symbolism of the wolf and sexual abuse.
As the ominous soundtrack is replaced by a sorrowful one, the careful camera sheds a different light on their horrifying appearances as it slowly pans over their respective scars and naked, raw flesh, concluding with Toroku's similarly disfigured scars. Initial fear and repugnance melts into empathy. Victims are omnipresent and abuse does not discriminate, Misato conveys these thoughts through silent words and subtle cinematography in this scene.
The bittersweet empathy growing between Toroku and his adopted siblings is interrupted by the growing symbolism of the wolf and sexual predation, however. The prior scene of the zombified baby sheep robotically strutting towards Toroku is angelic compared to the morbidity of Toroku's father preying upon his son after a tearful reunion. An epiphany dawns on the audience, Toroku was never kidnapped by disfigured sheep, he was instead saved by them from his wolfish father. As it seems that Toroku would again fall victim to his father's abuse, his adopted siblings and mother breathlessly save him, assuring him that reasons are unnecessary to save a stranger from abuse. Rather, he was never a stranger to them, in that victims are united by their experiences and pains.
Despite the seemingly happy note it ends on, My Little Goat doesn't adhere to the happy endings homestay to fairy tales. Just as there are multiple wolves in the Brother Grimm tales, there's no end to them in the world of this short film. The mother sheep ironically voices the moral to the wolf tales, warning her children to never open the door to wolves, but given the multiple instances of sexual predation in the narrative, what stops from it occurring again? What halts sexual predation, abuse and trauma from inflicting again on an old victim or baring itself new to an unknowing victim?, quietly poses Tomoki Misato.
Before the limelight of Pui Pui Molcar, Tomoki Misato charted into darker territory with My Little Goat. Boldly contrasting the lighthearted nature of children's fairy tales and the innocence of baby sheep with symbolism of sexual predation and abuse, Misato effectively achieves in creating a sorrowful narrative. The smooth stop-motion animation disallows your eyes to deter from the narrative, and subtlety permeates through it. Careful, considerate camerawork conveys the symbolism and a greater awareness of the short film's messages and the gentle music reinforces. The effort put into these ten minutes is clearly laborious, successfully dishing out emotional weight behind sexual victimhood. Tomoki Misato sought to convey, and he damn did it well.
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