H.C. Andersen og den skæve skygge

It was a looong time ago when I last saw this cartoon. I accidentally switched to the right channel at the right time, I guess... I saw this movie only ONCE, but i still remember it so well. Not the story itself, nor the characters really, but the atmosphere, the meaning, and the power of it.

The story tells Hans Christian Andersen life, all the joys and sorrows of it. Yet it's as surrealistic as it can get. Andersen is haunted by his very own dark spirit, which is represented by a thin, shady figure, called the "long shadow". It follows His owners every step, and leaves him restless. He lives, and actually "dies" with him (the last scenes of the film are quite enigmatic).

This is a story about divided, shattered person. Even though, the characters seem quite normal, the background makes up for it. At night, there's darkness, which makes everything shady and dark, and you don't know which shadow could be THAT one, and the daytime, shadows are just much too sharp (some of these scenes reminded me on the anime: Lain). All in all: not a kids cartoon. Not even for all adults. Its a really sad, surrealistic, slow and combined story (and a truly European one too), and the whole movie looks like it's been filmed in the 80's. But if you're in to these kind of things, and you're interested in a tale, that really holds a grip on you, than give it a try.

I'm a big fan of Jannik Hastrup and his movies. This movie is perhaps his greatest movie, although I would prefer to watch Fuglekrigen i Kanøfleskoven (The Bird War), or some of his other movies.

This movie is special, because it's a cartoon for adults. This is why it had a hard time selling tickets, because adults have decided that cartoons is a child thing. That's really sad in this case.

There are a lot of the fairytale-characters of H. C. Andersen all through the film, and there are also many references to his life.

Well, that's all. Try to borrow this film, and enjoy it. It's almost perfect.

Per

I had not heard of this cartoon until I incidentally came by it in my research on Danish animated movies. I discovered it was a movie by Jannik Hastrup and it had a certificate 11 on it and it peaked my interest. What did I get out of it, you may ask?

I got a surrealistic expirience out of it, that is the short answer to that question, but the longer answer is that I was presented to a cartoon based on the life and events of the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen who is constantly struggeling to find his own identity while being haunted by his own shadow which is gets him into some quite disturbing situations.

This movie could easily have been a live action movie, because as surrealistic as it is in its manner of expression, it actually deals with heavier subjects like sin, insanity and personal struggles with lots of religious symbolism. Those topics are both illustrated with creepy images once in a while which add chock value it, but in a graceful way. Maybe it would have attracted a bigger audience as live action, because animated movies often are looked upon as being for kids. This is not, in case you haven't noticed.

If you want an animated movie with depth and a mature story then this one could peak your interest. Give it a watch if you got the time to.