DbcultAccessing Vault...
5.9/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.9/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. The Milkman remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Look, if you are into old-school rubber-hose animation, sure. It is worth a watch if you have ten minutes to kill and want to see how they drew cows in the 30s. If you hate characters that wiggle too much or find the lack of dialogue unsettling, skip it.
The whole thing kicks off with Flip just trying to get some milk. The fly is the real star here. It has this frantic, buzzing energy that makes the rest of the farm look like it is moving through molasses. Watching the cow's tail take care of business was surprisingly satisfying.
Everything in this world is made of jelly. Arms, legs, the cow—it all just sort of flows. There is this weird, twitchy rhythm to the way Flip walks that I could not look away from. It reminded me a bit of the frantic pacing in Buster Helps Dad, just with more livestock.
Then we get to the town. The kid is just relentlessly annoying. Like, impressively so. He is the kind of character you want to reach into the screen and put in a timeout. Watching Flip try to hold onto his milk bottles while this kid bounces around him is a lesson in patience.
It’s not as emotionally heavy as The Heart of a Lion, but that is probably for the best. It’s a cartoon about milk. It doesn't need to be deep. It just needs to be weird enough to keep you watching, and on that front, it definitely succeeds. 🥛
I am still not sure how they became friends at the end. One minute the kid is a menace, and the next they are buddies. It feels like the writers just got tired of the conflict and decided to call it a day. But hey, it works well enough. It has that strange, hollow feeling of early shorts where the world only exists as long as the character is standing in it.