Having seen the movie on TV and having read all the comments, I was surprised to learn that nobody noted a social-political context. To me it seemed obvious the main plot of Zambezia carries the notion of the 'Rainbow Nation', stressing that by only working together and including every bird, and that goes especially for the evil marabous (with their English accents), a nation can survive and flourish. In other words, South Africa. I thought that was the point the movie wanted to make, apart from the usual coming-of-age and searching-your-roots motives so dear to American movies. But maybe I am digging too deep.
Reviews
5 Reviews
Bad animation, simplified story, but great voice acting
19 January 2008
Sadly, the only full-length animation feature ever to emerge out of the Netherlands has a predictable story development and substandard animation that doesn't live up to contemporary standards, let alone today's standards. To put it mildly: the film is a grossly infantile simplification of Marten Toonder's immortal comic strip novel, which is full of subtle humor, to be appreciated at an up-grown level, with characters like caricatures of class society: the ruling classes (the marquis, sir Bommel himself, the mayor), their henchman (police commissioner Bulle Bas, the middle classes (the shopkeeper, the civil servant)and the everyday folk (mainly commoner Wammes Waggel, the childish goose). Now in the film, all this is spoiled by playing down the critical messages , aggravated by stupid animation: everything moves at the wrong time, expressions changing rapidly, lips not keeping up with speech etc. The redeeming factor is the voice acting, which is superb in almost every single case. The shopkeeper Grootgrut outdoes them all, except the marquis, who is played by Ger Smit, best remembered for a series of classic voices for animated TV-series De Fabeltjeskrant. Grootgrut is played by Paul Haenen, who is best known as Bert of Ernie of Sesame Street. The few songs are highly superfluous. Continuity: the eyes of miss Doddel change for white to yellow in almost every cut. Now for some faulty story telling: at the point at which Bommel and his dragon are arrested, the film jumps to a news report from which we learn they are at large. How's that? And why is the dragon prone to stealing? Is also not explained. All in all, the beast is utterly unconvincing. As is the film as a whole. Alas.
The Flying Liftboy
(1998)
Children's story about intercontinental lift boy made to have a strong appeal to parents
8 February 2004
There is a lot more about this movie than it being 'a slow and nice film for little children'. Besides having charming children in the protagonist roles, the support roles kick real ass. There is the garage-keeping mother of Abeltje, who doubles as an American mother who thinks to have found her lost son and turns Abeltje into a puppet. There are also many jokes on New York jet-set and Latin American revolutionaries which will be lost on 'little children', such as the German 'translator', played by a comedian who plays nazis with enthusiasm on national television and delivers his role acidly. And, of course, there is the singing teacher who teaches a bunch of mariachi's to sing a song that is recognizable as one of the greatest hits of the early 80's, with the writer of the song actually playing a mariachi, with moustache and all. Early on she teaches a gang of New York youths to sing and dance to writer Annie M.G. Schmidt's famous song De Twips, also a hit in 1966. Although little children will get some fun out of this movie, it seems primarily aimed at the Dutch moviegoer of way past the infant age. Camerawork is impeccable, FX's are convincing and the cutting pace is breathtaking. No wonder Dutch children's movies fly so high internationally these days.
El vampiro
(1957)
Dark and atmospheric
24 October 1999
I have just seen El vampiro during a Latin American Film festival held in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, where its protagonist German Robles was present as guest of honour.
El vampiro is imaginative rather than talkative and has imagery no American fifties vampire flick can match. The story, of course, is lame and predictable, and, as Latin movies go, there is a lot of supernatural hokum coming with it. The overriding presence of Robles, together with the humor and the menacing, beautiful atmosphere, make up for it.
Vampiric action is kept to a bare minimum and the man-to-bat-metamorphosis (and vice versa) challenges in no way the 1932 standard. Nevertheless, it is one of the classics of the genre.
If you want to know how a vampire lady looks when she tries very hard to look like a vampire lady - well, the film gives you ample chance. One last thing: the soundtrack, however primitive, is a revelation: good vampire music and sound effects culminate in the humorous ending, when the leading man's words are drowned by the departing train's whistle. Nearly perfect.
El vampiro is imaginative rather than talkative and has imagery no American fifties vampire flick can match. The story, of course, is lame and predictable, and, as Latin movies go, there is a lot of supernatural hokum coming with it. The overriding presence of Robles, together with the humor and the menacing, beautiful atmosphere, make up for it.
Vampiric action is kept to a bare minimum and the man-to-bat-metamorphosis (and vice versa) challenges in no way the 1932 standard. Nevertheless, it is one of the classics of the genre.
If you want to know how a vampire lady looks when she tries very hard to look like a vampire lady - well, the film gives you ample chance. One last thing: the soundtrack, however primitive, is a revelation: good vampire music and sound effects culminate in the humorous ending, when the leading man's words are drowned by the departing train's whistle. Nearly perfect.
Animal Farm
(1954)
Manages to keep the Orwellian content and to avoid most Disneyan pitfalls.
10 May 1999
Having heard about this movie for years, a few months ago came my chance to watch it on television. Now this is an excellent animation feature that stands up to Orwell as well as to animation in general, and I mean commercial animation by that. Although it places itself in the American tradition of Disney-ites, the political content alone sets it apart from any children's animation. Apart from that, the animation itself is flawless, the narration is pursued with vigour but not by letting anything drop by the roadside and the visualisation is imaginative. The film takes some liberties with the book's story, but does not water the message down. After all, Orwell was far from being a communist and his views on totalitarianism were in keeping with the general fear of bolshevism in the fifties. Nevertheless, the sympathetic views towards egalitarianism en dividing of property would have provoked less favourable reactions at the time, I suppose. Humour is provided for, too, although it leans heavily towards Disneyan cuddly ducklings-effects. Also, Good is very good (horse and donkey) and Bad is very bad (pigs, dogs, farmer), although the pig Snowball's character is refreshingly ambivalent in this respect. How many more animation features did we welcome from Great Britain since 1955?
Tell Your Friends