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Brazil · 2019
1h 13m
Director André Catoto Dias
Starring Pedro Henrique, Mateus Solano, Denise Fraga, Matheus Nachtergaele
Genre Animation, Adventure, Drama
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Tito is a shy 10-year-old boy who lives with his mother. Suddenly, an unusual epidemic starts to spread, making people sick whenever they get scared. Tito quickly discovers that the cure is somehow related to his missing father’s research on bird song. He embarks on a journey to save the world from the epidemic with his friends.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Barry Hertz
The animation is equal parts digital, graphic and oil-painting-based, creating a surreal and hypnotizing landscape, while the main narrative thread offers plenty of real-world metaphors without condescending to kiddie sentimentality.
The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg
The adventure plot in the Brazilian feature Tito and the Birds, directed by Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar, and André Catoto, is no great shakes — it wouldn’t be out of place on a Saturday-morning cartoon — but visually, the movie leaves room for the viewer to synthesize, and to dream.
Tito and the Birds is extraordinary proof that universality comes from specificity. Sometimes there is nothing more globally relevant than a hand-crafted Portuguese-language animated indie.
Entertainment Weekly by Christian Holub
The strength of Tito and the Birds lies in its imaginative touches like this and overall visual aesthetic, which mixes various painting and animating styles into a beautiful fusion, but the actual storytelling leaves a little depth to be desired.
The Brazilian animated feature offers relief from the impersonal assault of contemporary pop culture.
Employing a darkly iridescent fusion of oil paint and digital embellishment, it renders a growing dystopia in shifting, seasick colors, distorted into about as much exquisite, Expressionist-inspired nightmare fuel as its family-film remit will allow.
The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak
Just like Issa López did in Mexico with Tigers Are Not Afraid, Brazilians Gabriel Bitar, André Catoto, and Gustavo Steinberg have crafted Tito and the Birds as a powerful metaphor utilizing reality’s horrors to drive home a point too many have resigned themselves into ignoring.
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
A Danny Elfman-like score and the dark earnestness of lead voice-actor Matheus Nachtergaele's performance make this world believable enough that the film's big revelation — city pigeons, as humanity's ancient companions, know how we can stop being so paralyzed by fear — doesn't sound quite as ridiculous as it should.
Paste Magazine by Oktay Ege Kozak
With its giddy and hypnotic mix of oil painting backgrounds and digital animation in service of a wonderfully inventive story surrounded by kooky, immediately lovable characters, Tito and the Birds is also one of the most original animated works of the year.
San Francisco Chronicle by Walter Addiego
An appealing Brazilian animated feature, and it’s conveyed in a handsome, expressive style that’s pleasing to watch.
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