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
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TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews14 May 2009
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KnatLouie27 February 2007I know Susanne Bier and Søren Pilmark were also nominated for an Oscar in 2007 and didn't win, but this movie won instead, making it a good substitute, since the story is about a Dane.
The story is about a Danish poet, Kasper Jørgensen, who lives in Copenhagen, but one day runs out of creativity and goes to Norway on holiday to search for inspiration. There he finds a girl whom he falls in love with, but alas, she is engaged to be married against her will with a local farmer who is the son of her fathers best friend. Instead she vows to never cut her hair until she can be with Kasper again, a promise that she keeps (making her hair look like Marge's from "The Simpsons"). And the story continues from that point..I'm not gonna spoil anything else, but it's all about chance and coincidences.
Now, the animation itself isn't that great, although it is very different from how "normal" cartoons looks like, reminds me of the Alfons Åberg-cartoons (or Alfie Atkins as he's called in English).
I haven't seen the competition, so I can't say if it was worthy of winning, but it was certainly a very good short movie, with a classical love-story in a new environment. There were many funny details, like the people on the ferry between Denmark and Norway only being drunk (Swedes?) or backpackers, and that the postal office never can be trusted (just like in real life).. thank God for E-mails! -
Polaris_DiB20 April 2007This is a very cute, very touching, and very loving little animated short. The best thing about it is its simplicity... it reminds me more of those PBS style animations or the Madeleine cartoons from when I was a kid. The storybook colors really aid in the warm, heartfelt feelings this movie gives off.
The basic premise is that lonely people, through their need for connections, eventually set off chains of events that leads to "happily ever after" not only for themselves, but for other entities around them. It's romantic, but allows itself the opportunity to be silly and childish at times to help keep it from being sentimental or boring.
I also like the small run-on gags that go throughout the short, such as the drunks on the cruise and the slipping cow. As a very minimalistic animation, every little thing, even in the background, has its own time and noteworthiness.
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Gordon-112 November 2008This short film is about a series of coincidences and accidents that led to the birth of the woman who wrote the story.
"The Danish Poet" is surprisingly heartwarming. The animation is simple with lots of soft colours and black borders on all items. It almost looks like a cartoon for infants. I find this particularly charming, as it enables us to regress to our childhood to appreciate all the little things around us that we no longer notice. The story itself is heartwarming and engaging. It made me smile from the heart, which is not something many films can do.
"The Danish Poet" is a beautiful film. Watch it if you have a chance. -
planktonrules2 March 2008This 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. -
LockedShut28 February 2007I 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... -
CinemaSerf4 April 2024"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 to does much for the Norwegian postal service, though!
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llltdesq19 March 2007I've seen three of the five shorts nominated for the Oscar and this short is the best of the three I've seen. I'm not at all surprised that it was the winner. Since it would be difficult to discuss this short without going into at least a few details, let this serve as a spoiler warning:
The basic idea behind this short regards the importance of random chance in all our lives. Narrated (very effectively) by Liv Ullman, with no other vocal work save hers, the story unfolds gradually and softly, with little touches of humor here and there. There are quite a few playful nudges at Danes and Norwegians throughout.
The story centers on a Danish poet and his hit-and-miss relationship with a Norwegian farmer's daughter. The relationship has a good many twists and turns, with a logic chain made up of all sorts of random events which change the course of various lives. Barking dogs, inattentive mail carriers, slippery boards, a funeral and hairstyles all take their turn at changing things, all leading to the marvelous conclusion.
This short is available (on DVD) from the National Film Board of Canada and is well worth watching. Highly recommended. -
Imdbidia10 January 2017This 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. -
lee_eisenberg1 March 2017Torill Kove's Oscar-winning short "The Danish Poet" is a look at how we as humans come to be who we are. Another thing that I derived from it is the question of how different we really are from each other. Much like how the characters aren't sure which Scandinavian country certain people are from, we often aren't sure about our background. Some people will claim to have only one type of ancestry, but one can't know for certain. The truth is, we're all probably mixed.
Other than that, it's an interesting cartoon. The animation isn't the most innovative, but it has a good plot, and that's what matters. In focusing on how her parents met, the storyteller reminds us that we all had to come from somewhere. -
joclende2 September 2019A touching story about how everybody falls in love and ends up happy apart from the ugly one who got crushed by a cow.
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Barely 14 minutes, this is a lovely, animated film short. On the surface it is about a Danish poet who travels to meet someone who inspired him. However, it is really about how small coincidences in our lives determine so many things of significance.
As the poet travels, and arrives near his destination, he is on foot and it is raining. He seeks shelter at the nearest farm house. There he is smitten by the farmer's daughter. She is in turn smitten by him. Unfortunate for the poet, she is already promised to another, the neighboring farmer.
Their lives go on, other seemingly random things happen, and eventually they are brought back together. And, as the narrator says, she herself would not been born had it not been for the circumstances that unfolded, in the order they unfolded. The randomness of life, and how we react to each situation, that ultimately defines all of us.
I saw this on DVD that is a collection of film shorts nominated for the 2006 Academy Awards. -
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.
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Horst_In_Translation8 July 2015"The Danish Poet" is an animated short film that runs for 15 minutes and was made roughly 10 years ago. it won an Academy Award in the Animated Short Film category and was, so far, the biggest success for writer and director Torill Kove. Funnily enough, the movie was nominated for best short film at the Norvegian Film Awards (Amandas), but lost there. Kove is pretty successful with the Academy. Apart from her win here, she has two more nominations, one of these very recently.
Still, I did not manage to appreciate this short film. It has a touch of everything: drama, comedy, romance, history, but I personally felt that it did not really deliver in any of these areas. In my personal case, it also did not help that I was not fond of the animation style at all. The narrator here is Liv Ullmann. This was one of her last projects, she is not too prolific anymore these days being way into her 70s. Ullmann is probably Norway's most known actress of all time, but don't worry: Her narration is in English (maybe because the NFB produced this) and the characters do not have any audible dialog. The only people I could maybe recommend this too would be Norwegians (or Danes) because of some of the historic references, but even these did not impress me. I am genuinely surprised and disappointed that this managed to beat the wonderfully moving "Little Matchgirl" back 10 years ago. Not recommended. -
ccthemovieman-117 February 2008This 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.