The Danish Poet, showing at the Columbus International Film and Video Festival
Running time 14:23
Review by Mandy Henderson
My daughter Greta and her father watched the Oscar-winning animated short The Danish Poet. Then she elected to watch it again with both of us– then we watched it again together tonight. Not only did this film hold up to repeated viewings, it kept our attention as well as revealing new layers of charm the more we watched it. I know from past experience that it is a rare animated film, particularly one that children can enjoy, that performs so well. It is also rare to find a film that delivers a deep message without being didactic.
The film is narrated by long-time Ingmar Bergman actress and collaborator, Liv Ullmann. She is very supportive of independent cinema and graciously lends her lilting accent. The stories-within-stories take place in Scandinavia and are romantic comedies of errors. One novel creates a ripple effect through many generations of relationships and circumstances, leading to the narrator’s conception. The character’s lives appear chaotic on the surface, but the larger arc of the plot shows a unity with transcendence. All of these attributes immediately bring to mind echoes of Bergman and Woody Allen films. Although many find Bergman’s (and somewhat Allen’s) films to be bleak, I have always found them to be humorous, frightening, and transcendent, and to hold some kind of timeless message for humanity. Never did I think I would see a film like this that my daughter enjoyed with me.
The animation is hand-drawn, a little shaky, and skillfully colored. Photographic shots of sky are used whenever the sky is shown. I have a deeply held belief that hand animation and drawing work on a part of our psyches unavailable to most time-based photography or computer-generated animation. I think this is the same part of our psyches that is activated by, say, the cave paintings at Lascaux, France, or Eastern Orthodox ikon paintings. I believe that our minds process these kinds of images as inherently magical, or spiritual. It is easier, with these “flat” sort of images, for the mind to see that our everyday lives can be rote and unsatisfying, but that there is a rich emotional and spiritual life “behind the curtain”. Then, it is shown that these two exist simultaneously, and that it is bittersweet and graceful. Hand drawing, like runes, hieroglyphs, and handwriting, is the language of symbolism. This film’s wiggly animation conveyed a sense of lively emotion, tempered with a uniquely Scandinavian elegance and propriety.
It is remarkable what The Danish Poet accomplishes in its short length. I recommend it highly to dreamers of all ages and look forward to many more projects from these artists.
More info at www.chrisawards.org