A good movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it did win the Golden Calf for the Best Dutch movie of the year, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, as often is the case with this award, I was rather amazed that it was chosen as the best movie of the year. I mean, sure, it does have some historical value since it was the very first feature length stop motion film ever made in the Netherlands. On top of that, even though it didn’t reach the heights of such masters like Aardman or LAIKA, I have to admit that the stop motion was really neat. However, even though the characters were not bad, the story was however terribly childish. Sure, you could argue that it was harmless and that it was aimed for young children anyway (probably one of the worst arguments ever) but it was still narratively terribly clunky. I mean, one of their running jokes was to have this little pig defecating all over the place and usually in some very large amount. The narrative arc they chose was also rather bewildering. Basically, it was about a young girl who never saw her grand-father and who suddenly got acquainted with him and they got along fine, you could see that she was really thriving with this new relationship. Somehow, the old guy was the only grown-up who seemed to understand her and he got her this sweet little pig for which they took care together which strengthened ever more their bond. So, it was all sweet so far and, yet, during the final act, it turned out that the guy didn’t care at all about this pig, didn’t care at all about his grand-daughter either, and only cared about winning some obscure sausage contest for which he needed to kill this pig. I mean, WTF, seriously?!! It just didn’t make sense and the only way it could have worked was if they would have completely flipped the tone by going with something much darker and edgier from the start. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t turn out to be really amazing, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch though and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.