Channel 4 animation from Christmas from Moga – a gem of a film that seems destined to become a seasonal classic – recreates my mother Judith Kerr’s 1976 book with great originality.
He brilliantly transforms a 32-page picture book into a 22-minute film starring the voices of Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy, while carefully adhering to the story and spirit of the original Mog, based on our first film, The Family Cat – Starring. She seeks refuge on the roof and refuses to be lured down after being spooked by the Thomas family’s Christmas preparations.
But this brings us to another question. How realistic was my mother’s book? Ultimately the series is inspired by her life with my father, sister and I in south west London. What did Mog’s Christmas really look like?
Christmas in my childhood was much smaller and quieter than in the fictional version of my mother, who died in 2019. Every two years my grandmother came to visit us from the Isle of Man, but there were no eccentric aunties or funny uncles. Although my parents had good friends, they were not particularly social and lived happily in their own world, just the two of them, plus me and my sister Tacy.
It was good for our cats. For most of my childhood there were three of us, of which our Mog was the oldest. With no crowd to distract them, they occupied the center of our world and were often at the center of our conversations.
This fact was very useful in Mum’s books because it meant that, like the rest of us, her eyes were always glued to cats and observing their behavior.
Our Christmas days were also a little more stressful than those of the Thomas family. My mother, who grew up in boarding houses and cheap hotels in Paris, Belgium and London after she and my grandparents fled the Nazis in Germany, had few opportunities to learn to cook. She wasn’t very interested in it either; She would rather spend her time drawing cats and tigers.
I sensed that she was a little uncomfortable due to the lack of comfort, and she looked in awe at her parents who could bring food and put it on the table without much effort.
The thought of cooking Christmas dinner always caused her anxiety and insomnia: she would put the turkey in the oven early in the morning. I saw my parents’ relief when all the gifts were unwrapped, the heart of Christmas was over and they opened a bottle of champagne.
And yet, despite her insecurities, our mother gave us a wonderful Christmas. She fully adapted to the English tradition of celebrating on the morning of the 25th, and not on Christmas Eve, as she knew from her childhood in Germany.
She didn’t have to get used to the tree because although her parents were Jewish, her father was an infidel and her mother’s family converted to Christianity, and Christmas in her childhood, although ideologically nebulous, always included a tree.
She and my dad were both good at choosing gifts, and it was magical for Tacy and I to wake up and see a stocking hanging at the end of the bed—actually a pair of my dad’s old socks hanging from a sewn-on ribbon. on top – filled with tangerines, chocolate, sugar mice with rope tails and small toys that need to be unpacked.
Even our Christmas dinner went well overall (albeit a bit delayed) despite Mom’s stress.
My father, who along with my sister was the most cat-obsessed in the family, cut out individual turkey parts and placed them on three saucers for Mog and the other cats at the other end of the dinner table to noisily devour. while the others waited their turn.
My father was in charge of gifts for cats. These were toy mice made from catnip, which did not last long as the cats tore them apart in a wild frenzy. While the other two cats were eating catnip, Mog burst into the house, scattering hers.
In some ways, Mog was very different from her fictional self. She was slimmer and smarter. If she looked out the window and saw that it was raining, she would go to the other side of the house and check the other window, which may not seem very bright, but is probably a sign of cat mind.
But in terms of his character and attitude, our Mog was very similar to the Mog from my mother’s books. Like most cats, she was a control freak, extremely conservative, and hated change or unexpected events of any kind. This made Christmas a particularly stressful time for her as she watched with growing anxiety as we became more and more agitated and filled the house with strange things like decorations, gifts and the tree.
My mother watched Mog and imagined the world through her eyes. Many of the stories she created arose from Mog’s central dilemma: how to understand the strange world in which she lived, based not on cat logic, but on human logic.
Unlike some other children’s books about pets, my mother’s books weren’t actually about people, portrayed as talking animals, but were based on something tangibly true: a cat’s view of the world. This has undoubtedly contributed to their continued appeal over the years.
One of the actors in the new Channel 4 production, actor and children’s author Charlie Higson, has spoken at length about why Mog stories remain so popular across generations. He suggested that young readers identify with Mog because, like her, they have difficulty understanding the world created by others—adults.
Children can also find solace in Mog’s trials, because as frustrating as life may be for them – being accused of unexpected crimes – they are at least better informed than poor Mog, who is bothered by Christmas decorations and trees that seem to walk .
The animation not only beautifully captures Mog’s many trials and tribulations, but also captures in great detail the times in which Mog lived and when I grew up. The details of the London suburbs of the period come through beautifully, from early 1970s cars and the No. 72 Routemaster bus to the multiple television screens in the shop window of Eric and Ernie, aka Morecambe and Wise, dancing into the distance.
There are also brilliant references to my mother’s other works. When Mr Thomas and his children go shopping for the Christmas tree and pass the cafe, eagle-eyed eyes may notice that it is a family. The Tiger Who Came to Tea.
For me, the most powerful moment in the film is a small one. Then the children of Thomas, Debbie and Nicky – fictional versions of me and my sister – open the curtains and look in wonder at the falling snow outside.
When I saw this scene, a slight shiver ran down my spine. I clearly remember the feeling of being in a warm room, and then going out through the curtains into the fresh air through the windows and looking in surprise at the fluttering snowflakes.
The film will certainly delight younger viewers, but I suspect it will also bring a lot of joy to those several generations older than you, as they are transported back in time to the Christmas days of their childhood.
Source: I News
I am Mario Pickle and I work in the news website industry as an author. I have been with 24 News Reporters for over 3 years, where I specialize in entertainment-related topics such as books, films, and other media. My background is in film studies and journalism, giving me the knowledge to write engaging pieces that appeal to a wide variety of readers.