The Danish Poet

This is an animated story about "chance" and "coincidence" ruling our lives, something the author apparently believes because it's stated by narrator in the first few sentences of the film that "we are all just seeds floating up there in the space waiting for someone to get us."

With an atheistic outlook like that, it's no wonder this won an Oscar for "best animated short." Had the opposite belief been put into film, it wouldn't have stood a chance to be nominated.

Anyway, Torill Kove, a Norwegian animator/filmmaker and current resident of Canada, gives us this "cute" story in which a series of circumstances all make for a happy ending. The illustrations are half the fun of watching this 15-minute award-winning short. They artwork is clean and colorful and a treat for the eyes.

Liv Ullman does a nice job of narrating the film but I would have rather had a variety of voices. Having a female voice all the male characters sounded out of place.

I wouldn't be surprised if Miss Kove did this story tongue-in-cheek, knowing that actually everything happens for a reason, not that all of life is sheer chance. No one is dumb enough to believe that, which is why this is a good fairy tale.

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...

A touching story about how everybody falls in love and ends up happy apart from the ugly one who got crushed by a cow.

This is one of the best animated shorts I have ever seen.

Sure, there is no CGI, no wow effects, and none of the commonalities of modern animation. In fact this is a 2D animation, that will remind some people of the images of Vicky the Viking series of the 1970s.

However, this short has something that most modern animation films do not have, and that is what makes it unforgettable to me. The secret of The Danish Poet is that tells an amazing story, which happens to be based on real events. This is a story that speaks of serendipity, synchronicity, and the inter-relatedness of the world. A story that shows a world in which even the bad stuff that happens to us can take us to amazing places and be meaningful. A story that shows that every twist and turn in life is a creative process. The Danish Poet is, in the end, a story about love minus the cheese, told in a simple, funny and magical way.

The short is beautifully narrated, it has a point, it tells a complete story, it makes you feel and think. Fantastic.

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.