Dunderklumpen!
This 1974 Swedish film is soooo sooooo fun! A mix of live action and animation, it tells the story of the title character, a goofy hobo/vagabond who likes to sing and dance even though he's kind of sad and above all, lonely. So on the evening of the longest day of the year he goes to little Jens's house and brings a few of his stuffed animals to life--a bunny, a lion cub, a doll, and a bear. He then proceeds to "kidnap" the toys, and Jens goes on the run with his pet goat (!) to track him down. Jens's dad is, of course, worried about his little boy (although not horribly worried), and enlists the help of a bumblebee detective (who wears a trenchcoat à la Columbo) to help find him.
A picaresque adventure/road trip movie that will remind viewers of Neverending Story (but not as scary) or Triplets of Belleville (but geared more towards children), the movie's primary strengths are in the animation, which is very 70's and very anti-Disney, and the gorgeous scenery of northern Sweden. The animated characters are all kind of scruffy and shabby and sweet, especially the adorable Lionel, the lion cub. The cinematography, although marred a bit by an old and slightly murky video transfer, still manages to show Sweden's lush forests and lakes to great effect. Also worth mentioning are legendary harmonica man Toots Thieleman's folsky/jazzy score and goofy songs which add to the carefree feel of the film. I've only managed to see an English-dubbed version of this on the old Video Gems label, but I think the songs and voices are done remarkably well.
I'm not sure why, but sometimes when I get home from a night out and am a little buzzed, I have an overwhelming urge to watch a children's movie from the 70s. Between this and the old Pippi Longstocking movies, it seems like the Swedes have mastered the drinkin' children's movie--one part goofy animation plus one part gorgeous travelogue plus one part silly songs plus wacked out Scandinavian Mentos-commercial humor equals one helluva good time!
Skål!
The IMDB page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071448/combined
A page in Swedish about the film with cool pics:
http://www.pennfilm.se/Dunderklumpen.html
posted by Billy Farquhar @ 3:11 PM
4 Comments:
Hej Billy!
Vad bra att du har avgjort först att skriva på en svensk film. Vi kanske kan titta på Dunderklumpen snart igen. Ha det så bra och lycka till med webbsajt. Hej hej!
Din vän
Max Von Sydow
Dunderklumpen was my favorite movie as a kid and then I acidentally taped over it with something else and I've been looking to get a copy ever since! "When the Dummy takes his temperature and it's 100 degrees then he knows that he's perfectly normal!"
Hello,
i've been looking for information about this film since i was 8 years old and I saw a model sheet in an old film-story book, in Spain. I was totally in love with the characters in that model.
Actually, I'm a professional comic- cartoonist.
Do you know if its possible to buy a DVD edition of the movie?
Thanks a lot for this page!
Hi Jose,
I recently bought a DVD of the film when I was in Stockholm. It is unfortunately only in Swedish or Danish with Scandinavian subtitles.
Here's a link to that version, which will have the best visual quality. Note it's a PAL (European format) disk that will only play in PAL-compatible players or on a computer:
http://dvd.cd-wow.co.uk/cheap/dvd-dvd-region-2-dunderklumpen.php
If you want to watch it in English, this site has an NTSC (North and South American format) burned DVD of the old dubbed-English videotape. Visual quality will be poorer (they rate it as B-minus) but you might be able to understand it better:
http://www.lostsilver.com/movies/D/Dunderklumpen.html
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