Just curious but----

[lombano]

Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth suffered the same problems. It was marketed as a fantasy flick and that was what people expected - and got sorely disappointed.

Yep. I know someone who thought it was about Peter Pan - an accurate translation would have been The Faun's Labyrinth.

[sauvin]

[Pan's Labyrinth] was marketed as a fantasy flick and that was what people expected - and got sorely disappointed.

They did? I don't know anyone who didn't like that film.

Eh, it was a nothing of a movie, hardly memorable at all. I only watched it half a dozen times.

[TΛPETRVE]

There are hell a lot of people who didn't like the film. I find it way overrated, too, but that's because it severely fails as the Kunstmärchen it claims to be. It's shallow and ridden with empty and incoherent metaphors that have absolutely no connection to the meta level. That's what you call "pretentious". It falls in exactly the same category as The Fountain, which beyond its heartfelt plot is also pretty much a truckload of utter amateur-spiritualist bullshit. Nevertheless, it's a beautiful film to look at and as a mere feast for eyes and ears and soggy hearts, it serves well. But then, so do a lot of movies nowadays.

[decltype]

There are hell a lot of people who didn't like the film. I find it way overrated, too, but that's because it severely fails as the Kunstmärchen it claims to be. It's shallow and ridden with empty and incoherent metaphors that have absolutely no connection to the meta level. That's what you call "pretentious". Nevertheless, it's a beautiful film to look at and as a mere feast for eyes and ears and soggy hearts, it serves well. But then, so do a lot of movies nowadays.

If I didn't know better I'd think you were speaking about Alfredson's latest film

[TΛPETRVE]

Alfredson's film has no pseudo-mythological metaphors. It doesn't dwell on elaborate clicheés of dreamy kids and disillusioned grownups - they (kids and adults, wishes and reality)) are just there with no further wannabe-symbolic undercurrent. And most of all, it doesn't try to be a fairy tale and fail so hard at its task. The one big failure of El Labirinto del Fauno is that it basically reenacts The little Match Girl but goes way aboard with involving further elements that don't have any point at all. As a fairy tale, it doesn't work.

[decltype]

The one big failure of El Labirinto del Fauno is that it basically reenacts The little Match Girl but goes way aboard with involving further elements that don't have any point at all. As a fairy tale, it doesn't work.

Yes, I recall that you've drawn this comparison in the past, as well, and I'm slightly puzzled by it, as I do not see the immediate similarity. I'm sure one could make a case for it, though.

[drakkar]

is LTROI not as popular in Scandinavia as it seems to be in other parts of the world? I think I read elsewhere on the forum that this is the case. The movie continues to win awards, but apart from the Guldbagge Award in Sweden, it seems to elicit a yawn from Scandinavia.

I think the point is that LTROI was never intended to be "important". It basically started off as "just another film" made for not a specific target audience but for all kind of people, similar to certain TV productions, and as such it was received. Seriously, without the vampire part of the story, LTROI might have never been really taken notice of even outside of Scandinavia, and eventually passed over to the staunch wannabe-arthouse communty as "Here's another Danish or Swedish or whatever coming-of-age tale, you might probably like it" - which would have been a real shame.

Norway has not many possibilities of awarding foreign films - the one I'm aware of - handing out the "Amanda" awards - I don't like at all, and I am really happy that they didn't spot LdRKI. So our relationship is still consistent.

In the media, the film has received a steady trickle of ovations, and still does. Which is rather unusual for a one and a half year old film. Last December, a TV culture program at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation summed up literature and film of 2009. When they reached the film section, an ovation of LdRKI broke out, and they never got any further. The sum up was LdRKI. But Tape is right, this was a cultural program with relatively few viewers. So the ovation didn't reach the masses. At least it warmed my heart.

The last tribute came in my local newspaper a month ago, on the last page:



One of the four great Norwegian writers, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (Nobel prize in literature 1903), has a street named after him in Blackeberg - Björnsonsgt. This is the very street where Lacke and Jocke part, with Eli waiting in the underpass below.

Bjørnson wrote a well known (in Norway ) poem as homage to the spring: "Jeg velger meg April" - "I choose April"".
The writer of the article has made a twist of Bjønsons poem as a homage to LdRKI: "Jeg velger meg Eli" - "I choose Eli".
The last sentence is worth the whole article: "Bloddryppende munnviker blir ikke penere på film enn dette" meaning something like "Blood dripping mouths on film can't get more beautiful than this".

So I think LdRKI receive quite a lot of acclaim. And the dvd is all over the place in the shops.

[TheVoxHumanus]

"Here's another Danish or Swedish or whatever coming-of-age tale, you might probably like it"

For some reason this made me laugh VERY hard.

[drakkar]

And there it was again, popping up in media.
Now, a year and a half old, it has become the reference: "Why can't Norway make decent films with child actors? Look how it can be done - look at LdRKI!"
And it works. Last week, nearly a year after the dvd release, LdRKI claimed 4th place on the dvd board. After District 9 and two TV-series.
A slow acting poison indeed.

[Microwave Jellyfish]

Wow. That means it has beaten Twilight and New Moon, right?