tonda

February 01, 2013

Back in 2008, i blogged about a German fantasy film called Krabat.
Just over four years later and i finally got round to watching it.

I swear that's going to be on my headstone:

'Here lies Louise Boyd.
She finally got round to kicking it.'

Or something to do with hiccups.
I hiccup twice a day, every day.
A friend once told me i would die of them - all in jest - and my headstone would read:

'Here lies Louise Boyd.
She hiccuped.
A lot.'

We may have been Buffy geeks together.
We shall not be judged and we will never warn the tadpoles!
Ever.
Joss? Hire the Buffy gang again, please?
Poor SMG and Nicholas Brendan, they're so lost without you!

Back to business.
I have spent the last four years building up an idea of what i wanted Krabat to be.
Having never read the book it originates from, i had no preconceived notion of what the story should contain and altogether be like.
I did, however know exactly how i wanted it to look and feel.
...
Well, it looked right.
Damn near perfect in fact.
Somewhere between Legend and The Company of Wolves.
Which is basically my dream movie.
But it didn't feel right.
The pace was too slow and the characters didn't affect me as much as i wanted them to.
Not even Daniel Brühl who i love and adore, even when he's creeping me out in Tarantino movies.
I wanted more.
More sorcery, more supernatural battles, more transfiguration into malevolent looking ravens and so on and so forth.
I guess, in all honesty, i wanted it to be more like Night Watch but still retain that Grimm Brothers, old timey, twisted fairytale edge to it.
Maybe i was asking too much.
But you know what?
I'd more than happily watch it again.
Fantasy? Good triumphing over evil? Black magic and whatnot? 
Yeah, there's no way i'm not going to be straight into that multiple, so many times over.
I'd really love to see it performed on stage.
It seems to be somewhat of an adaptational favourite in Germany.
Figurentheater Wilde & Vogel come over to Britain sometime and make a fantasy-obsessed girl's heart thump a little harder.
Or some lovely person - innocent bystander - come with me to Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg to see Karin Dreschel's incredible looking version of Krabat.
Please, oh please.
No?
Alas, for now then i shall just have to be satisfied with watching Karel Zeman's 1977 animated take on Otfried Preussler's classic tale of love in all its forms and the price of practicing dark magic.

As for the film.
Oh well, it could have been an epic fail, satisfactory will do just fine.
I did enjoy spending the entire movie looking at the eponymous lead character, played by David Kross, thinking he must be the resulting bastard, love-child of a very dirty night between a young Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride, Charlie Hunnam of Queer As Folk fame and Thackery Binx.
You know? 
The kid from Hocus Pocus?
The cat?
You must know?
If you don't, get thee gone from my blog right this second and get it watched!
It's a kid's classic that i was both terrified and bewitched by.
An occurrence that seemed to creep up on me a lot as a kid:

The Dark Crystal
The Animated Lord of the Rings
Witches 
(keep your face on, Angelica Huston)
The Princess and the Goblin
Labyrinth
(the Fireys scared the bejesus out of me.
Living things should not be able to trade heads.
Nuh uh.)

And that's just a mere few of the filmic creatures that haunted the dark corners of my room at night.
Did anyone else listen to the audio version of 'The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark' when they were little and terrified of nighttime fiends?
With the owlet called, Plop?
Saved my life every night as a kid.
The ankle-grabber could get stuffed as long as i had Plop for protection.
...
This entire post makes me sound demented.
Sigh.



Listening to: My Bloody Valentine 'Sometimes'
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