“Marona’s Fantastic Tale”: Life Through a Puppy’s Eyes Ain’t Something to Bark About

As Mr. Bob Dylan noted last week in a rare interview: “Good news in today’s world is like a fugitive treated like a hoodlum and put on the run.” Substitute “a French puppy” for “good news” and you basically have the plot of Marona’s Fantastic Tale, a tale of urban life with all the ups and downs of canine/human romance.

Yes, here, in one of the more beautifully animated features released in many a year, director/ writer Anca Damian chronicles the life of Nine. Nine, as you might have guessed, earns her moniker by being the ninth and final puppy born to a rather sexy mixed-breed mom and a racist pure-bred dad. But that isn’t how the story starts.

Sadly — but not for us — we meet Nine with her heart-shaped nose right after she is hit by an auto, winding up as “a mere smudge on the asphalt.” As her final owner, a self-centered teen, Solange, kneels by her side, the injured mutt decides to “take a moment to rewind the film of [her] life.”