A Town Called Panic

Official movie poster

Two words: utter ridiculousness. From the first absurdly entertaining exchange of “A Town Called Panic,” to the last off-the-wall encounter, the French stop-motion film never lets up on the goofy, frenetic chaos and affords precious few moments of coherent reality.

A horse typing away on his computer or pounding out music on a modified piano? Ok. A bright-lights, loud-music, dance-club birthday party in the living room? Sure, why not? Plastic figurines getting into a drunken bar fight over who’s dancing with who’s wife? Naturally.

Anything can and does happen in this film about the three amigos (or, more fittingly, les trois amis): Cowboy, Indian and Horse. Don’t try to make any sense of it or think you can logically explain what goes on, you can’t. How do two toys order 50 million bricks when they only wanted 50? Really? No one questioned that? It’s ok. Just accept it. It’ll be better that way.

In fact, the more you let yourself sink into this crazy, mixed up, upside down world where horses slow dance and the next door neighbor performs delicate surgery on his beloved tractor, the more you find yourself escaping the everyday doldrums of 9-to-5 work weeks and bumper-to-bumper traffic and reverting to a simpler time when Dr. Suess was the silliest guy around.

And it doesn’t take potty humor or thinly veiled adult references to keep you in stitches throughout the entire film (it’s rated G, remember?). At one point, a startled Cowboy starts shooting his rifle at goodness-knows-what and you can’t help but laugh even if you don’t know quite why. It’s just that these characters are so nutty, so absolutely, perfectly bizarre, that they are endearing. Cowboy and Indian try to be good friends and roommates to Horse when the plan to build a barbeque for him for his birthday, and it’s with the best of intentions that they attempt to deal with their leftover bricks. It’s not their fault their tiny toy heads are filled with nothing but plastic. How could they possibly know that improperly disposing of 49,999,950 bricks would result in catastrophe? But oh how they try to set things right again.

To the center of the earth, up through the arctic, hurdled into the ocean only to end up back in the village, the trio traipses all over Claymation creation, eventually ending up in a parallel world they learn has been hiding right beneath their feet. On their journey, they encounter all kinds of wonderfully unique and colorful characters, from an angry wooly mammoth to amphibious house-stealing, er, creatures.

You never know what to expect next. And by the end, nothing should surprise you. No sweat, it’s just a giant robotic snowball-throwing penguin staffed by crazy scientists. What the heck?! But, hey, all’s fair in love and war, right? Even pig throwing and cow catapulting.

As for love, one must not forget the romance between Horse and the beautifully soft-spoken piano teacher Madame Longree woven through the action-adventure sequences. Their unconventional relationship serves as an additional source of confusion and comedy, with some charming “aww” moments thrown in for good measure.

Despite the fact that this is a French film (meaning, they speak French, you read English subtitles), the subtitles never get in the way of the creative animation or the hilarious dialogue. Rather, it’s marvelously well-done to sync the words with the sound so that you can read with the same inflection with which the characters speak, something that can sometimes be “lost in translation.”

And, as every comedy worth mentioning should be, “Panic” is oh so very quotable. “Mmm, good toast,” exclaims the tractor-loving , next-door-neighbor Steven as he devours his bread-and-nutella breakfast five times his size. “Mmm, good coffee,” he follows with as he crashes through a life-size coffee cup.

So go on. Take a chance on this wonderfully idiosyncratic film. But take note, it’s only playing in a few US theaters for select showings. No need to panic, though, it’s a pretty safe bet that this little gem of a film will be, unfortunately, a well-kept secret.