Randie had heard good things about this movie and there it was sitting in our Netflix queue so why not give it a try. So we did.
The story begins with a young man named Jesper, a selfish brat from a wealthy family with no life ambitions whatsoever.
Jesper's father puts him in the royal postal academy to teach him the value of hard work; instead, Jesper deliberately distinguishes himself to be the academy’s worst student.
The postman's life is not for Jesper.
But his father has other ideas and sends his son to run the post office in Smeerensburg, an island town located above the Arctic Circle. All Jesper has to do is post 6,000 letters in a year from the island post office. If he doesn't, he will be cut off from the family fortune forever.
Smeerensburg is a frozen hellscape where the town inhabitants are feuding locals filled with anger, bitterness, hatred and animosity. Never mind exchanging letters; these bitter people barely exchange words.
Jesper meets Alva, a young woman who came to Smeerensburg to be a school teacher. But nobody in Smeerensburg wants to learn anything so her youthful idealism of being a teacher has given way to the bitter daily torment of being a fishmonger in order to save up enough money to get out of this hellhole.
In addition to the town folk who regard their new mail main with hostility and disdain, there is one other inhabitant of the island, way off from the town and deep in the woods. His name is Klaus, a woodsman with a skill for woodworking and a house filled with lots of handmade toys.
There is a series of rather fortunate and fortuitous events that transpire to have Jesper encourage the children of Smeerensburg to send letters to Klaus with the promise they will get toys.
Jesper is obviously looking out for a way to make that goal of 6,000 letters so he can extricate himself from Smeerensburg and remain in the good graces of the family fortune.
But despite his selfish intentions, things start happening in Smeerensburg. The children begin being kind to one another, even across the boundaries of feuding families. The kids begin doing good deeds for the adults. The children who do not know how to read and write to send letters to Klaus seek out Alva with a voracious appetite for learning. Alva begins spending from her escape fund to help better educate the children. Alva is not the only adult inspired by the children as the grown ups inspired by their kids are also prompted to do good deeds.
Smeerensburg becomes a cleaner, happier and brighter place to live.
Not everyone is on board with these changes.
The heads of the two feuding families, knowing their power comes from cultivating hate and acrimony, begin plotting how counteract the activities of Klaus and the post man.
Meanwhile, Jesper, once desperate to extricate himself from Smeerensburg and remain in the good graces of his family's fortune, finds himself caught up in the joy of his work with Klaus. What will he do when he makes his goal to post 6,000 letters?
Klaus is a very endearing movie. No one starts off the story in a favorable light, certainly not Jesper and not even Klaus himself. But the evolution of the characters in this film is organic.
There's no moment when Jesper suddenly decides to be a good guy. He's in the middle of manipulating the children and Klaus to his own selfish ends as he slowly begins to absorb that something special is happening. He's oblivious to the all the good that is occurring in Smeerensburg until it's almost too late and he realizes the value of what he has, however inadvertently, created in this small Arctic village.
The animation on this film is beautiful. Klaus is hand drawn but employs techniques of coloring and shading that give it the sheen of a CGI film while retaining the fluidity of traditional animation.
Klaus is a very enjoyable film and could well become a perennial holiday classic here in the Fortress of Ineptitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment