The Danish Poet

I understand that this won the Oscar for the category it falls under when it came out. I haven't seen any of the competition, so I can't compare, but it certainly is great. It's a fairy tale in a modern setting, and not everyone will care for the world view arguably presented herein. This is sweet, without being so hideously overflowing with pure, concentrated saccharine, to the point of viewers risking getting diabetes from watching. It's got a sense of humor, which can be claimed to move towards the ever-so-slightly dark once or twice, and is otherwise almost invariably entirely inoffensive, as the short ought to be, on the whole. Jokes and gags aren't childish, gross or similar, although some of them may perhaps mainly be funny to us Scandinavians, and may not get as big a laugh for those not familiar with the relationships between the countries and their people. The story-telling device of narration is used fine, if nothing new is done with it. The performance is good. The animation is simple, with occasional exaggeration. It doesn't look or feel "sloppy" or downright bad. The plot is nice, and the ending, along with plenty else in this, is cute. I recommend this to all who feel they might enjoy it, and encourage not only Danes, Norwegians and Swedes to give it a chance. 8/10

"Kaspar" is the aspiring poet who's hit a brick wall. His psychiatrist suggests that the best solution might be for him to take an holiday in Norway (it's cheaper than France!). Off he goes where he befriends a farmer who's distant relative twelve times removed is the very poet "Kaspar" wants to meet. He stays at the farm for a while but is soon distracted from his original goal by the beautiful daughter. She is promised to the son of the next door neighbour, however, so he has to return home sad and dejected. She vows never to cut her hair until they meet again and it's only after a very helpful cow and a dead rhymester (independently) intercede that the couple manage to meet again. That gives rise to even more serendipity and the ability of our narrator to tell us all about the story of just how interconnected even the most random of incidents can be. It's a fun animation this, simple line-drawn characters with a solid and quite entertaining story that augments Liv Ullman's narration with some other jovial observations about country living, tourists, death and tradition. I'm not sure it does much for the Norwegian postal service, though!

I watched the Academy Awards and saw this win, and of course, hadn't heard of it. I stuffed the memory of it in the back of my head and when I finally remembered, finally looked it up online, I was blown away by how wonderful it is.

The Danish Poet is a great story, that I've often considered to be true, in that maybe the little things in our lives do shape our path. It's full of these wondrous little moments that make you sigh, make you laugh, make you say "awww..." It's quite probably the best film I've seen this year, and given that it's 15 minutes long, that's saying something...

This is a sweet story about a long chain of seemingly random events that eventually led to the birth of the person who wrote the story (though it was read by Liv Ullman). Not surprisingly, there are some touches that seem very Scandinavian--such as the introduction, the way that death is talked about as well as the veneration of the story "Kristin Lavransdatter" (the movie version was coincidentally directed by Liv Ullman and I have reviewed it--but this isn't the place to get into that).

The first time I saw this film, I was underwhelmed and gave it only a mildly favorable review despite it being an Oscar winner. However, I saw it again a few weeks later and was surprised how much more I enjoyed the film the second time. I really think most of the reason I wasn't impressed at first is because at least visually speaking, it's not as pretty a film as the rest of the other nominees. THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL was one of the prettier Disney films I have seen using traditional animation, LIFTED is as good a product as you'll see from Pixar, NO TIME FOR NUTS was another excellent CG film packaged with the ICE AGE films and Maestro, though made by a small studio, was nearly as pretty as more commercial CG films. In contrast, THE DANISH POET looked very old fashioned--much like a "Madeline" cartoon.

The second time I saw it, though, I noticed more of the cute little artistic touches--like all the cows falling down the ramps and other odd embellishments. However, what really stood out most the second time was the really sweet nature of the film and how it caused an emotional reaction in me at the end. Charming and sweet--this is something the other films lacked. I still think LIFTED might have been the most enjoyable and best made of the shorts, but THE DANISH POET was a real labor of love and had a lot of depth to it.

A sweet, loving, humorous tale. This is two stories. First, it wrestles with the issue of where we come from. Secondly, it tells the story of a Danish poet who lost his inspiration. It took him years to pull himself out of his perpetual angst when he meets a good woman. This won the best animated film in the year produced. It is colorful, not preachy, and innocent. Nice work.