A cat losing its tail is a painful sound, and equally painful when it’s told with a screeching cat sound effect used to drive that stake into a viewer’s emotions. This is one of those attempts where memories from a time long ago are believed to be viable stories for films. Stephanie Via used one of her grandmother’s stories as her thesis project at a university and the drawling voice of India Schell tries to bring wisened observation to the tale, but it expects too much, wanting people to embrace this memory quickly without question. The black-and-white images on the screen of an old woman looking around a house, I suppose watching those memories again, is overreaching. Manipulation of emotions only goes so far, and here it’s overdone, especially since animal cruelty, even when it’s performed by the innocent, is always dicey.
