2006 Movie
Dir. Christiane Cegavske · United States of America · No language
Strange woodland creatures battle over a doll in this eccentric stop-motion fairytale
Blood Tea and Red String is cryptic as hell. There’s no dialogue, the film was in production for around 13 years, and the stop-motion animated rats and bat-crow creatures fight over a stuffed human-like doll and her bird-bodied child, spilling some tea and sewing her together with help from frog priests and a spider woman that keeps spinning her web. Whether the film is an allegory for class struggle and the inherent destructiveness of art, or is a straightforward Alice-in-Wonderland-esque fairytale with goth and medieval motifs is up to the viewer, but either way, the symbolism of Blood Tea and Red String is interesting enough to watch and try to make your own conclusions.
The aristocratic White Mice and the rustic Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak battle over the doll of their hearts' desire.
"As lovingly crafted as it is unsettlingly sour-sweet."
— Dennis Harvey
One day, the aristocratic White Mice commissions the Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak to create a beautiful doll for them. When the creatures create her, however, they fall in love with her, and refuse to give her up. Because of this, the Mice kidnaps her in the middle of the night.
Look, the rats vs the bat-crows might be a metaphor for class struggle, but I can’t help but think there has to be a reason as to why the girl in the intro sharing the same face as the doll, the doll’s bird child, and the spider has to mean something else.
It’s actually insane to spend 13 years on a single film, but thank you for doing so anyway, Christiane Cegavske.
Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
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