Tintin et moi

After I first heard about this on the internet, I immediately looked high and low for this documentary. When I finally found it, I was all set in watching the whole TV special.

This documentary is about Herge and his life's work on the Tintin series. The whole thing is presented by a man who had a tape recorded interview with Herge back in 1972. Preserved all those decades and used for this TV documentary with the usage of visual reenactments and archive footage of Herge to give the documentary a spiritual/immortal feeling to it. A lot of the archive footage of Herge was redone in a pencil like format to make his appearance look like that of his own drawing styles. As well as a collection of screen-shots of various Tintin books combine with sound of fixes to give them a living effect to them. There's also a few interviews with people who knew Herge as a friend or as a relative who express their feelings about him.

The great thing about this documentary is it gives you the idea of what Herge was like when he was still living. And it has almost all of the important facts of his life. If you're a fan of the books, then you'll enjoy this documentary a lot. If it ever becomes available on Region 1 DVD, then I would definitely buy it.

Quite frankly one of the best films I've ever seen about an artist and the process of creating art. I didn't grow up reading Tintin, but am mighty tempted to start now as an adult.

While the film succeeds at all levels in telling the story of Hergé's life, what really sets it apart is the filmmaker's masterful way of conveying the feeling of what it was like to be Hergé and what it means to live the greater part of one's life through the characters one has created. Time and time again, it was the emotion of the moment that got me, drawing me closer and closer to Hergé, and compelling me forward into the next scene and the next element of the artist's life, which cast yet another new light on who he was and what drove him.

This is an utterly timeless film about the joys and despair of being an artist. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Some thirty years ago, Author Numa Sadoul published a book length interview with the Belgian comic book artist Georges Remi (better known as Herge, the creator of Tintin). This movie catches up with Sadoul today as he recalls the interview, while we listen to the cassettes (Herge died in 1983) and see some old photos and footage of the man himself. Some parts of the interview were not published in the book at the request of Herge, and we now know these dealt with his separation from his wife, after he had an affair with one of his collaborators (who years later would become his second wife). An interesting thing the movie does not address well is the shift in the Tintin books from the early rightist and imperialist books (Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in the lands of the Soviets) to fairly anti-imperialist books just a few years later (The Blue Lotus). On the whole, I come out of this movie knowing a few more things about Herge and seeing him as a bit more unlikable than when I come in to the theater.

Imagine that I was about to miss this great cultural event on Swedish TV last night, and it was only because my girlfriend insisted on keeping the TV on (to make it easier for her to fall asleep!) that I came across it (yes I had seen an advert for it previously but of course forgotten about it and looked forward to an 'early night'...).

Anyway - this must surely be a rather unusual idea - to base a film documentary on an interview made with sound only more than 30 years ago. But with animated and other documentary film material it adds up to a really good and insightful portrait of one of the 20th centuries' most appreciated literary artists - Georges Remy a.k.a Hergé.

I for sure will read my Tintin albums with a different eye after having seen this film, which makes it easier to connect the variations in style as well as content with the different periods in Hergé's life (and I can tell you that I will a.s.a.p get the few that I don't have). Of course my perception of the albums has changed over the more than 25 years that I have already been reading them, as has my view about what albums are my favourites, but this adds (at least) one more dimension to them.

If you as I have a very close and long relationship with the world of Tintin....do yourself a favor and watch this beautiful documentary about Hergé and his life creating Tintin. I'ts so brilliant and a very cool production. The whole background story about Hergé and the people and also very much the many different situations he was influenced by, for good and worse is amazing. There is a very fine and obvious connection between the comic books and just this. I will for sure be in my basement digging up the Tintin albums again. Also, the movie itself are very well told and has a great ambient sound to it. I really do hope people will find this as intriguing as I did!