The imagination, craft and world-building in this fantasy — Mexico’s very first stop-motion animated feature — are off the chart.
I wish similar attention had been paid to the story.
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| After allowing her conscious self to be transported to Topus Terrentus (the Realm of Terrors), Frankelda hopes that her lurid imagination will be enough to save Prince Herneval's realm. |
The narrative is laden with 19th century Mexican culture, Day of the Dead folklore, creation myths and visual nods to the unsettling paintings of Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo.
Art fans also will smile at the film’s opening tableau: a fantasy-hued nod to Rodin’s massive bronze sculpture, The Gates of Hell.
The result feels like a mash-up of Pixar’s Coco, Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, Henry Selick’s adaptation of Coraline, and Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie and Nightmare Before Christmas. That’s no surprise, since the brothers admitted — in a recent Los Angeles Times interview — that their lives changed after seeing a VHS version of the latter.
A lengthy prologue — set in 1866, in Mexico’s Real del Monte — introduces Francisca Imelda (voiced by Habana Zoé), an imaginative little girl who hopes to become a published author. We meet her on the sad day that her mother — who paints lovely landscapes — falls ill with what kills her soon thereafter.
This initial sequence is amazingly lush, despite the limitations of stop-motion work. The girl and her mother stand in a gorgeous field of swaying grass and flowers, with small creatures — a lizard and rabbit — hovering in the background. Tears flow from the girl’s eyes, when her mother collapses.
To comfort herself, Francisca writes fantastical stories about Herneval, the “Prince of Terrors” in Topus Terrentus (Realm of the Terrors). The girl’s grandmother, with whom she now lives, disdains this useless waste of time. The waspish old hag makes Francisca spend her days like a wage slave: cleaning up, darning clothes and every other chore demanded of her.
Unbeknownst to Francisca — and all human beings — Topus Terrentus and Herneval (Jules Presley) are real: He’s the son of King Ficturo (Beto Castillo) and Queen Veritena (Gabriela Cárdenas). All three resemble a regal cross between human beings and birds of prey.
Their realm is home to all of humanity’s fears; when Ficturo plays the immense harpspider — which connects to our Realm of Existence — he shapes human consciousness. The denizens of Topus Terrentus, in turn, are kept alive by the power of humanity’s nightmares.
Unfortunately, humans have become too sophisticated for the nighttime visions created by Procustes (Luis Leonardo Suárez) the Royal Nightmare Maker. His efforts have grown tired, stale and clichéd.
Procustes himself is quite the nightmare: a lurid green torso and bulbous head, jutting atop a massive tarantula. This horrific spider-thing’s eight legs are matched by Procustes’ eight eyes, and the eight fingers of each of his two green hands. And, credit where due, Suárez puts considerable creepy malevolence into every spoken word.
The power of Francisca’s stories, along with Herneval’s desire to climb the harpspider, allows the young prince to briefly visit our realm. They see each other; most crucially, Herneval feels the power of her imagination. But, after returning to his own realm, his parents warn that he must never do that again; denizens of the two realms cannot be in each other’s presence.
Ten years pass.
Francisca, now a young woman (voiced by Mireya Mendoza), has continued to write terror stories. She’s encouraged to “go pro” by Augusto (Alejandro Orozco), a young man sweet on her; his father Damastes (Jesse Conde) is a publisher.
Sadly, the situation in Topus Terrentus has become dire; some of its denizens are literally melting away. Prince Herneval (voiced by Arturo Mercado Jr.), frightened by how frail his parents have become, renews his desire to seek Francisca’s help. By coincidence, this rekindled effort coincides with Damastes’ heartless dismissal of the young woman’s writing talent.
“Art and literature should reflect reality,” he intones, “not create a new one.”
(Stephen King and his colleagues likely would take exception to that.)
Herneval avoids potential calamity by extracting only Francisca’s consciousness (with her permission). Her body is left behind, and her blue-hued conscious self — eager to help — follows the prince to his land. Upon arrival, she mashes her first and last names together, and re-dubs herself Frankelda.
Her — and our — initial overview of Topus Terrentus is jaw-dropping: a dazzling display of weird and unusual architecture, its sky and streets laden with an astonishing assortment of bizarre creatures ... far too many to take in. (I cannot imagine how long it took, to animate this one sequence.)
Ah, but the nefarious Procustes isn’t about to tolerate a replacement Nightmare Maker. After summoning the rulers of the seven clans — Magic, Psyche, Primal, Depths, Darkness, Robbery and Death — they plot a revolt, with the ultimate goal of invading and overwhelming humanity’s Realm of Existence.
Matters ... get catastrophic. Repeatedly.
These dire doings unfold in a manner that’s almost operatic, thanks to half a dozen Broadway-esque songs by composer Kevin Smithers, with lyrics by Arturo Ambriz.
This film actually is a prequel to Frankelda’s Book of Spooks, a five-episode series of shorts that debuted on HBO MAX in October 2021 (and continue to be available via that streaming service). The Ambriz brothers parlayed that show’s success into this feature-length project, which explains how Frankelda became the storyteller of the earlier series.
Although there’s much to admire here, it eventually becomes clear that the Ambriz brothers’ ambition exceeds their narrative skill. The third act is exhaustively overcooked, with our heroes in and out of deadly peril too many times. Frankelda’s wild mood swings and frequent losses of faith become tedious. And while some of the songs are lovely and artfully placed, others are irritating, stop-the-action intrusions.
Despite those flaws, marveling at the impressively creative visual tapestry is time well spent. And you’ll definitely want to hang around for the lengthy end credits, which unspool against captivating, behind-the-scenes clips that reveal the exhaustively painstaking work involved.
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