Cool World (1992)
Paramount DVD (region 4)
d. Ralph Bakshi; pr. Frank Mancuso Jr.; scr. Michael Grais, Mark Victor; ph. John A. Alonzo; m. Mark Isham; ed. Steve Mirkovich. Annamaria Szanto; cast. Brad Pitt, Gabriel Byrne, Kim Basinger (102 mins)
Director Ralph Bakshi is one of the foremost animators ever to grace American film. His work in the 1970s with such films as Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic pioneered the art of the adult cartoon. In many works he experimented with a startling combination of live action and animation, having actors interact with animated characters and often filming actors and then drawing over them in a technique known as rotoscope. He was a true innovator. However, his film of Cool World, again skilfully combining live action and animation, was rather unfairly dismissed on its release as imitative of the much higher-profile Who Framed Roger Rabbit? by a new generation of film goers. While that film was a popular hit, Bakshi’s movie quickly disappeared and was sadly considered a poor, but often dazzling, offering from a past master who had been somewhat eclipsed by recent talents and technologies. Although Cool World is a disappointment, that in no way compromises Bakshi’s achievements in the 1970s especially and indeed there is much in Cool World that is playfully weird. Perhaps the main change in the material, however, is in the animation style, which here seems deliberately less like the classic underground Bakshi and more like the quick, ground-breaking animation he once did for the Rolling Stones’ music video “Harlem Shuffle”. That said, although Cool World may be a lesser Bakshi work, it is not insubstantial.
Cool World begins in Las Vegas in 1945. A returning GI (Brad Pitt) is reunited with his mother. Soon he takes her for a ride on his motorcycle and they are involved in an accident resulting in her death. Grieving and hallucinating, he is transported into another dimension, the fully animated “Cool World” of the title. In Las Vegas 1992, a comic book artist (Gabriel Byrne) has drawn his dream woman, whom he calls Holli Would. Seemingly in a dream he is transported to the Cool World and sees her there as an animated figure. He believes it was a dream based on his successful comic book series, presciently entitled Cool World. However, when he is transported again to this animated realm, he meets Pitt, now a policeman, who informs him that the Cool World itself is real and not his invention – Byrne has been intuiting its presence. He is also warned to stay away from Holli. Holli on her part wants Byrne for a distinct purpose. It transpires that the one taboo in this alternate animated universe is that it is forbidden for a doodle (cartoon) to have sex with a noid (human). Holli wants to have sex with Byrne in order that she too may become human. Byrne finally cannot resist her and after their encounter, Holli does indeed become human (in the form of Kim Basinger). Back in the real world, however, she is unstable and threatens to force the two realms into collision. Pitt must return to the real world to stop her. read more