New Moomin Movie In 3D, With Music From Bjork
This is one for fans ofCalvin and Hobbesor Studio Ghibli, and if you foundWhere the Wild Things Are’s sweet melancholy too much to resist, then there’s a good sprinkling of that feeling to be found here too.
The Moomins were the creation of Finnish novelist and comic strip authorTove Janssonand, according to legend, she drew the first one to scare her brother. That cute thing? Scary? Maybe it was one of the Moominland monsters she drew, such as The Groke, the Antlion or the Hattifatteners? As a child I devoured the Moomin books and sat rapt, five days a week, watching the Moomin stop-motion TV series. A more recent series produced by hand-drawn animation was less successful artistically, but perhaps better known internationally.
This year the Finnish animation studio Filmkmompaniet completed their first Moomin feature film,Moomin and Midsummer Madness. It was made by taking footage from the original Polish-Austrian TV series, reformatting, rescripting and revoicing it. Whereas the Moomins never spoke on TV and the story was told by a narrator, they now have dialogue and much of it apparently taken straight from Jansson. Unfortunately, the English voices on theofficial site’s trailerleave a lot to be desired.
Next year, the second of Filmkompaniet’s Moomin films will launch. Excitingly,Moomin and the Comet Chasewill maintain the distinctive look of the original stop-motion but be produced in and exhibited in 3D. Today we learn thatBjorkwill be contributing a song to the soundtrack, which I’d have to admit seems pretty bang-on appropriate.
There’s a series of images fromThe Comet Chaseafter the break.
TheFilmkompaniet sitementions that a 78-part TV series of Moomin tales is now in production in HD. The truth, it seems, is that this will be the original series remastered and possibly, though not definitely, revoiced as per the Midsummer Madness movie. I hope the revoicing is sensitively done because I never managed to get the Moomin series on DVD before it went out of print and often kicked myself.
My favourite version of the Moomin adventures so far would be the original books, being somewhat less episodic than the five minute installments shown on TV, though having found recently the Moomin comic strips, I’m head over heels with those at the moment. There are apparently some unabridged audio books with Hugh Laurie reading, and those I simply have to track down.
The following images from the upcomingComet Chase, come fromthe official Moomin Facebook page. The film is being directedMaria Lindberg, as wasMidsummer Madness. We don’t have Bjork’sThe Comet Songto listen to yet, though I think she’s already recorded a good few Moominy tunes, don’t you? I thinkWanderlustwould be a good example.
There was also a cel-animated version of the same story, from the producers of the later TV series and released cinematically in Japan. Alongside both the novel and comic strip versions, I think that makes this easily the most retold Moomin adventure. Thankfully, it’s also one of the best.
