‘Unicorn Wars’: The beast that ends up devouring itself

In 2015, although it arrived in Spanish commercial theaters in 2017, the illustrator and director of short films Alberto Vázquez amazed with a powerful debut film, ‘Psiconautas, los niños Olvidados’, which he signed with Pedro Rivero and which was based on the short film ‘Birdboy’ and the graphic novel of the same name by Vázquez himself. Now, The Galician animator takes it one step further with his second feature, “Unicorn Wars”which is also based on an idea raised in another of his short films, “Unicorn Blood”.

Already in his first film, Vázquez has shown a masterful ability to create artistic dissonances that allow him to offer a radical perspective of what he tells, using a cartoon style for a dark story. which reflected the abyss of inequality and the vicious circle that turned an enchanted forest into a landfill, with characters abandoned to their fate and unable to break fashion. Equally fascinating and more hypnotic is “Unicorn Wars”, which further twists the conceptor having as protagonists some plantigrados that seem taken from the universe of ‘The Care Bears’ and some unicorns worthy of ‘My Little Pony’ cousins.

However, Vázquez does not configure a typical scenario of a children’s production to tell a fairy tale for the whole audience; but He takes the opportunity to narrate a war film whose apparent anti-war message is based only on the representation of the acts of his characters. Here, the glamorous thing comes into play to transform the adorable into the terrifying and show the creepier side of the seemingly glamorous. With molasses smiles and little hearts, bears show their cruelest side, slaughtering unicorns, drinking their blood or devouring cute rainbow gusiluzin a more psychedelic sequence than what might be seen in the iconic ‘Dumbo’ with pink elephants and much more sinister.

That contrast between a brutal and savage story with a “cute” aesthetic (perhaps the Japanese term “kawai” is more accurate) fascinates and allows Vázquez, who also wrote the screenplay for the film, to expand the original idea of ​​”Unicorn Blood”, in which two bear brothers went into the forest to kill the last of these mythological animals and drink their liquids. Although the premise expands, the fraternal relationship continues to be the fundamental pillar of the plot, allowing us to explore how evil itself is forged and how it can arise from a child’s grudge who tries to be loved by his mother, at the same time that he hates her for breaking the image of a perfect mother and wife. To this is added the rivalry of the brothers, in which Vázquez draws on the classic archetype of Cain and Abel, with the addition of the emergence of a messianic figure, in which the most ruthless face of the psyche ends up expressing itself.

A hypnotic and disturbing animated film. The beauty of the art of war at its best

Perhaps part of the symbolism of “Unicorn Wars” lies in that first deadly sin, in which a society with a warmongering spirit is created, controlled by a dictatorial regime, in which strong religious fanaticism and clear thought control reign, which projected on the other – the unicorn – a visceral, collective, tribal and primitive hatred. This is where the film’s anti-war portrait is most visible, showing how war only causes destruction, to the point of creating a beast that ends up devouring itself.

There are several problems faced by “Unicorn Wars”, a feature film that maintains multiple levels of interpretation. Add to this a Cartoon animation style that evokes the visual power of traditional sketch and how it can deepen that eerie feeling, with sequences that take the film to the max, with gore-worthy scenes – impossible not to remember the grisly animated series for adults ‘Happy Tree Friends’ – that only accentuate a creepy atmosphere that is present throughout the film. Mention also for its careful soundtrack, the work of Joseba Beristain.

With an epic, shocking and tremendously symbolic ending, “Unicorn Wars” is the consolidation of a very specific cinematic vision of animated cinema. Alberto Vázquez is one of the leading figures in Spanish animation for adults. If Stanley Kubrick with “Full Metal Jacket” or Francis Ford Coppola with “Apocalypse Now” had directed their films under the premise of the Disney factory, they probably would have conceived such a film.

Note: 8

The best: The contrast between the lovability of his “Hello Kitty” animation style and a tremendously perverse and sinister story.

Worse: It has a central part where the script seems to falter, which means that the result is very good, but it does not reach the extraordinary level of ‘Psychonauts’.