[Before getting on with my own thoughts on Spanish animated feature Nocturna we're pleased to welcome a special guest reviewer to Twitch with an audio review of the film]
Tim is a young, artistic boy living a solitary life despite being surrounded by other children at virtually all times. Tim has no family; his home is an enormous, labyrinthine orphanage whose other occupants are far more interested in kicking a ball around than in joining Tim as he creates enormous, complex chalk drawings on the orphanage roof. Afraid of the dark, Tim moves his bed to the window every night, using a special knob he keeps hidden away to open the shutters so that he can have a clear view of the stars in the night sky, particularly that one special star that his mother told him would watch over him for the rest of his life before her untimely death. But kids can be cruel and one night Tim finds his special knob gone, stolen by other orphans and, unable to open the window he runs frantically for the starlit roof where he discovers - horror! - that his star has gone out.
And it is not just Tim's star. The night sky is under assault, the twinkling lights snuffed out one at a time before his very eyes. Before too long there will be no stars left and Tim will be left all on his own in the dark. Panicked and frightened he stumbles from the roof, falling to what should be a sure and certain death only to be rescued by a very strange figure, an enormous man surrounded by hundreds of cats. He is the Cat Shepherd, keeper of all the night time cats, each of whom are, in turn, assigned a boy or girl to watch over as they sleep through the night. The night, you see, is very well regulated. It is the realm of Nocturna, a realm populated by strange, magical creatures who oversees all that happens in the night time hours. Your tangled hair in the morning? The work of the Hair Messers. The lights scattered through the city? Small creatures called Luminos. The strange sounds scattered the quiet night? Played as music by an elaborate orchestra. And do I really need to tell you about Mr. Pee? Tim is quickly plunged into this strange new world, a world that he must save from the quickly encroaching Shadow.
Though it falls short of being a classic Nocturna is a very strong piece of children's fiction, an imaginative and engaging story that neatly balances the magical with a touch of menace, all of it delivering a message of empowerment to its young target audience. Designed and animated with great care the film evokes the feel of Tim Burton and Lane Smith without ever coming off as derivative and the story is liberally sprinkled with surprising little touches sure to bring a smile. The Hair Messers are great fun and the directors deserve special mention for how incredibly well they handle Tim's scores of feline companions. All the ingredients are present in Nocturna for a truly great film but it is let down somewhat by a script a touch light on character development and also a rather weak English dub that can tend to sap the energy in places. Better English voice actors would greatly improve the energy of the piece with no other changes required.
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