Lampje

This is a beautiful miniseries that showcases the best of Dutch cinematics. The storytelling is spot on, the graphics are great and the 'little' cinematic tricks like how the narrator turns on the cinema projector at the beginning of each episode are the icing on the cake.

Watching this series with my 8 year old and talking about the story and the underlying messaging was wonderful. We both equally enjoyed each and every episode. We were both quite sad when we got to the end, not for the ending itself (au contraire) but for the simple fact that we could no longer continue on the road of this story. We want more!

It's hard to fathom for me why the media are so uniformly exultant about this. Granted, the production design and cinematography are gorgeous, and the source material is one of the best Dutch children's books to be published in recent years. But neither the story nor the characters have not survived the transfer to this medium. The pacing is mind-numbingly slow. The acting feels wooden and stilted, lines delivered abrubtly and without conviction. It seems to have been edited without any sense of either rhythm or pacing. And to top it off, the childish, over-the-top, redundant voice-over by the unnecessary storyteller made both my kids cringe. This must be yet another case of stars assigned for effort and the mere fact of being an ambitious Dutch production. Such a shame...

This short series is so beautifully made, so rich, so full of daring fantasy, charm and brilliant acting... it is a pleasure to see, listen and feel. All the details together form a story which could have been told or filmed, decades ago, in Tsjechoslovakia or Hungary. But this is meant as a HUGE compliment. I was moved so many times at so many moments and I never saw it coming.

The story is fresh, feels like a oldfashioned and yet modern fairytale and has it's own daring magic. The characters are never a cliché but filled with warmth and love, both from the writer as the people who realised them.

Watch it for yourself and enjoy!