NZIFF Review: Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale

WEB EXCLUSIVE | REVIEW | NZIFF 

Written by Trevor Pronoso |  Letterboxd: @CleverGurl | Instagram: @trev.pro | Contributing Writer

Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tail Tale (1986)

dir. Murray Ball

Aotearoa New Zealand / Australia, 68 mins

Aggressively kiwi.

I began to realise, at least since last year's NZIFF, that 4K restorations of old movies are much rarer and more special than catching the latest coming-of-age film (the latter are also more likely to hit streaming services than restorations). Having never read the comic strips—nor have any sentimental/nostalgic connection to them either, unlike the packed middle-aged audience for this screening—Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tail Tale does what it says on the tin: a dog (whose name is 'Dog') navigating the chaotic countrysides of Footrot Flats and the silly shenanigans of Dog's sheepfarming owner, Wal (and I don't mean Wallace and Gromit).

It's nice to know New Zealand has its own local Tex Avery cartoon variants through Murray Ball's Footrot Flats. Yet, at points throughout the film, I question why a comic strip that thrives on short-burst gags necessitated the longer, bloated treatment of a feature-length film. Tex Avery's films benefited from their quick, punchy runtimes of less than 10 minutes, as if all the visual gags and satirical jabs were about to explode out of their brief duration. Ball's comics, too, were mostly limited to four panels, but trying to weave together a common narrative thread to justify all the comedic scenarios' coming together reads like a fool's errand. The first animated feature film produced in Aotearoa is a crowning achievement, sure, but call it an issue of structure and a reliance on linear, continuity-driven storytelling. The original comics were never serials, after all, but if they had been, an episodic/anthological structure for Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tail Tale would've been golden.