At the start of every month, I have a tradition of scrolling through Criterion Channel for what’s been added to the service. For my money, they have the greatest diversity of quality material to choose from, and I often find myself discovering new filmmakers in the process. A large reason for this is that they’re one of the only streaming services that have a conveniently marked place for “Incoming” and “Outgoing” films that you can peruse with some urgency. Given how much is on there, A LOT falls through the cracks. This is your best way of catching the missing pieces.
It was here that I found a title that immediately piqued my interest. The iconography featured a Hello Kitty-like cat wrapped in bandages with a big smile on their face. The title, Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space (2002), had a few things going for it that made me smile. For starters, the anarchic assumption of a cat being punk spoke to my youthful and angst-ridden heart in such a way that I would’ve pressed play on the title alone. It’s catchy, and while it risks being on the esoteric side of Japanese animation, it would make for a memorable 90 minutes in my evening.
And then there was the description. At first, it was nothing exceptional and provided a basic rundown of this cat who travels through space to visit a cat planet full of crazy shenanigans. It wasn’t until I got to the end and read that it was inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s “The Crying of Lot 49” that my question mark turned into an exclamation. I do worry that Pynchonese is a genre not dissimilar from Lynchian that is mostly shorthand for “weird for the sake of weird,” but I couldn’t turn down the specificity. “Lot 49” is among Pynchon’s most accessible and enjoyable works, and I think there’s room for a sci-fi film to really play with the concepts of eccentric characters and anti-corporate madness. Given that it involved a “punk cat,” I just needed to see what this magnificent concoction was like.
Let me start by sharing that I ultimately feel like my love comes at the cost of a weighted grade. The middle portion is especially convoluted and gets to points where I’m getting antsy. It’s the moments where directors T.O.L. (Trees of Life) start to create a world that alludes to an epic that doesn’t exist, which spans centuries and deals with some truly astounding plot twists worthy of a Satoshi Kon work. This may be an issue for me in part because it’s hardcore sci-fi (a genre I struggle with), but it’s also because of the inaction of everything on screen. After an opening that was unbridled ingenuity, the impatience brought on by this breathing room grew by the minute.
And yet… I love Tamala 2010. As the days continue on, I find myself perplexed by every decision and admiring what turn-of-the-century animation was doing. This isn’t some major studio. I wouldn’t even put it on par with Don Hertzfeldt. As someone on Letterboxd noted, this has qualities more on par with Microsoft Paint and Flash Animation. Even with occasional CG elements, this is a story filled with designs that aren’t challenging. If I wanted to stick with the theme, it feels like advertising run amok, where we’re basically watching cute cats wreaking havoc as a subversion of larger marketing.
Something that may be difficult for other generations to understand is the impact of something like [adult swim] on a Millennial’s mind. I grew up in a time when turning Cartoon Network on at midnight meant I was watching talking meatballs and robot chickens. There was this deranged, go-for-broke nature to their animation, and it would evolve into a few noteworthy incidents that included the mythic Too Many Cooks: a short that has since become lore, but I have to imagine was even more surreal to watch at 3 AM. Something is comforting but also hallucinatory about [adult swim], and it’s been hard to find art that captures that experience. Vera Drew is probably the current auteur of that style, though she’s far from the only one.
Tamala 2010 has more of a story than a lot of what [adult swim] would run, but the idea at the center is oh so dumb that it might work in short bursts on the channel. The major twist of the story is that the protagonist Tamala is a cat who, due to circumstances, is immortal. She has lived for centuries and has even had her likeness stolen to sell products. While this would be enough to make a compelling story, T.O.L. goes the extra mile by deciding to make Tamala an infantile character. To dumb it down a little more, she is essentially a one-year-old with a strange level of agency to do intergalactic travel and has what normal people would call “the mouth of a sailor.” Given that her voice is designed to be soft and welcoming, your mileage may vary on how cute it is to see this Hello Kitty-esque creature blissfully curse the day before starting her journey.
Tamala is designed as a very simple character. She is dumb cat tropes incarnate. She’ll sleep on people’s computers while they’re using them. She’ll run headfirst into a screen door only to get up and continue running. In a gag that falls closer to the anarchic spirit, someone is driving her into town as she pleads for them to roll the window down. Because this is anime, she can kick the door off the hinges before saying, wide-eyed and cheerful, how happy she is that she can finally feel the breeze. At another point, she becomes so irritated by somebody on the street that she dropkicks them for absolutely no reason.
That is Tamala 2010 in a nutshell. It’s an excuse to play with a character who doesn’t have much purpose beyond being a lifelong gag. Even if nobody laughs at her, it’s hard not to see her stumbling and social awkwardness as both hilarious and tragic. It especially becomes worse when she enters a planet full of catlike people and finds that she is intellectually inferior to those around her. They live full, productive lives and have this established sense of history. Meanwhile, Tamala is dumb and aimless, and doesn’t even have the fortitude to recognize her own failures. She is a cognitive one-year-old. It’s hard to know what she remembers throughout her life or if anything actually matters.
Everything works to build sympathy for Tamala, if just because she’s the irony. Around the hour mark, a character begins exploring the planet’s history. There are atrocities and eradications. The violence is overwhelming. Even Tamala’s backstory has theoretical heartache. And yet, she endures. The supporting cast studies her less as a person but as an artifact hiding clues to their lineage. It’s also a chance for them to lean in and wonder what immortality must feel like. Everyone will die except her. Many will form this deep bond with someone who doesn’t have the faculties to express it back.
Alas, if there’s one issue with the structure of the story, it’s how the tones feel imbalanced. At times, it’s closer to the Tex Avery cartoon vibes, but it’s also a melancholic study of death through the eyes of a profane-laced cute cat. When the story moves away from its title character, it becomes harder to appreciate what T.O.L. is trying to say because a lot of it is more lore than theme. There is this push to make the world feel fuller, as if there might’ve been a planned Tamala series where each monologue gets to be explored. With that said, the erratic nature is fitting for the technique, where the posters donning Tamala’s likeness are meant to evoke happiness but are hollow, crass messaging. There’s not even surety that Tamala would use these products. She’s no different from modern AI and likeness rendering. What we like about her may not be real at all.
This results in the great tonal discomfort that drives the story. I haven’t chuckled this much in a while, but I also watched the finale and felt horrified by the connotation. After building elements of romanticism, it ultimately accepts nihilism as the only outcome this story could have. As the viewer says goodbye, they have to reckon with whether it was right to look on as Tamala stumbled through her life, or if there was anything that could be done. On some level, it’s a helpless situation, and one that makes the story a labyrinthine delight.
Don’t get it twisted. There are a lot of better-written stories out there. I’m not even sure that this is a perfect script. And yet, it’s in the messiness that the punk, the Pynchonese, the joy shines through. Everything comes together to tell a story that refuses to be ignored. Even as I say that, it reminds me of [adult swim], it feels at times more accomplished than their throwaway 15-minute gags. The fact that this has been an underground sensation for close to 20 years makes sense. The shoddiness becomes the heart of the piece, where the effort outshines anything on screen. It reminds me why I find Criterion Channel invaluable. There’s good and there’s bad, but it’s all from the heart. I’m not sure if you’ll love Tamala, but there’s plenty else to keep you company.
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