MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE

Name: MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE
Item: MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE
Author: Tess Farrand

“Loyal Dog with Rough Circumstances”

Family Content: -1 Caution advised for older children, including teenagers, and sensitive adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Summary
Audio

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What You Need To Know:

MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE is an animated French movie that follows a dog from birth to death as she changes owners three times. Marona is the ninth puppy in her litter upon her birth but soon thereafter, sold to an acrobat. As the acrobat’s career progresses, Marona leaves him so she won’t slow down his career and comes under the care of a construction owner. However, the construction worker’s wife doesn’t like Marona. So, again, she leaves and winds up in the care of a young girl whose elders let her keep the stray.

MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE is stylistically engaging. It features unique and abstract animation. Also, it presents a well-rounded point of view for each character that stresses their struggles, desires and joys. However, like many French movies, the ending is somber. MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE has a strong moral, redemptive worldview that extols sacrifice and looking out for misfits and includes a reference to Heaven. This is marred by some Romantic elements like following your dreams. Due to some violence, smoking and brief foul language, MOVIEGUIDE® urges caution for older children.

Content:

(BB, CC, Ro, L, S, A, D, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview with some Christian, redemptive elements where a dog exemplifies loyalty and sacrifice, friendship extolled, charity extolled, character says “love doesn’t see race,” a Christian cross shown in the background of two scenes, and there’s also one instance where a character almost climbs into heaven but comes back to his body instead of dying, but marred by light Romantic elements where a character wants to follows his dreams but his dog knows that humans suffer all too easily from a lack of contentment

Foul Language:

Two “d” words, three light borderline profanities (such as “God only knows”) and dog urinates

Violence:

Dog dies after stepping out in front of a moving car, elderly woman smashes a plate and falls down due to her poor health which lands her in the hospital, mention of domestic violence, but it’s not emphasized

Sex:

Cartoon woman appears in fishnet stocking and might be a prostitute, but her appearance is too quick to determine for sure, heterosexual couple embraces, married couple kisses

Nudity:

Naturalistic animal nudity

Alcohol Use:

Social drinking in a few scenes, character drinks wine after making a tough decision but doesn’t get drunk, character mentions he’d like to buy a beer for his professional hero

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

Smoking, sick elderly woman has to take medication, vets office shown with injured pets, but there’s no blood depicted even though there’s mention of it, IV drip shown; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Mention of a male dog being a racist, but later he has mixed blood puppies so it’s ironic, racism but rebuked, and little girl disrespects her elders as she grows up, but her caretakers institute consequences for her actions.

More Detail:

MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE is an animated French fantasy that follows a dog from birth to death as she changes owners three times. MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE is stylistically engaging with unique and abstract animation, a well-rounded point of view for each character, and a moral worldview, with some Romantic elements, as well as some violence, brief foul language and smoking warrants caution for older children.

MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE is told in one big flashback. At the start of the movie, Marona lies next to her owner Salonge on a busy street after a car hits her. Flashback to Marona’s early days. Marona wasn’t called by this name until much later. Instead her breeders called her “nine” because she was the ninth puppy in her litter.

Soon after her birth, Nine gets sold to an acrobat named Manole. Manole calls her Ana, and she helps him collect funds from onlookers on the street as he performs death-dying stunts. One day, Manole gets an offer to be a star performer in a traveling circus. He refuses because he won’t be able to take Ana. However, because of her affection for him, she leaves so he can follow his dreams.

Next, Ana meets a friendly construction worker named Istvan who takes her in and renames her Sara. Sara stays with Istvan’s elderly mother until she has a health scare that winds both her and Sara in the hospital. Sara comes to Istvan’s home but rubs his wife the wrong way. One night, dog catchers come upon Sara, and she flees the scene.

While wandering the streets and parks, Sara meets Solonge, a young girl with an adoration for this lonely and starving dog. Solange can’t keep this dog a secret from her grandpa or mother, but, reluctantly, they agree to keep her, and Sara becomes Marona. Solange grows up and tries to establish a relationship with her estranged father. Solange goes to meet her dad via bus but leaves Marona stranded in the park to do so. Marona chases her down and jumps in front of a moving car to save Solange, but this only leads to her death, which viewers got a glimpse of at the beginning of the movie.

MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE has a strong moral, redemptive worldview that extolls sacrifice and looking out for misfits, with some elements of a Romantic worldview like following your dreams. There’s also one instance where a character almost climbs into Heaven but comes back to his body instead of dying. However, it’s up to the viewer to decipher if that was his choice or not. Due to some violence, smoking and brief foul language, MOVIEGUIDE® urges caution for older children for MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE.