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Director: Floor Adams
Release date: February 23, 2019
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
Christopher is a man on the autism spectrum, He loves his model Stuka dive bomber airplanes, but he has difficulties with social relationships. When is older brother invites him along to a party, a whole new adventure for him starts.
Christopher’s autism is shown by a homunculus inside his head who has to look up and memorize everything and thus easily gets an information overload, for example when too much is happening at the same time during the party. Christopher clearly is as sympathetic as he is social awkward, but I cannot help but admire the patience of his love interest Gwen, who has to suffer a lot through Christopher’s erratic behavior.
‘Mind My Mind’ is a nice insight in the mind of a person on the autism spectrum, but succeeds not entirely or convincingly in making the audience believe he can function easily in society.
The designs are pleasant, although I found the homunculus too sketchy a character. The animation meanwhile, is fair, and focuses on the characters’ emotions and relationships. Despite being a Dutch-Belgian co-production, the voices are in English, and thus the film can be enjoyed by a large audience.
Watch the trailer of ‘Mind My Mind’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Mind My Mind’ is available on DVD
Director: Piet Kroon
Release date: October 13, 2018
Rating: ★★
Review:
The Dutch animated feature film industry long consisted of one movie only, ‘Als je begrijpt wat ik bedoel’ (The Dragon That Wasn’t (Or Was He?)) from 1983. But in recent years several other films saw the light, mostly directed at youngsters: ‘Nijntje de film’ (Miffy the Movie) from 2013 , ‘Pim & Pom: Het Grote Avontuur’ and ‘Trippel Trappel – Dierensinterklaas’, which are both from 2014, and more recently ‘Knor’ (‘Oink’) from 2022 and ‘Vos en haas redden het bos’ from 2024. An oddball within this recent canon is ‘Heinz’ from 2018.
‘Heinz’ was a comic strip by René Windig and Eddie de Jong that run in Dutch newspapers from 1987 to 2000 and again from 2004 to 2006. The comic strip was about a cat, Heinz, who quickly got more anthropomorphized until he became a sort of everyman. The strip knew some continuities but remained first and foremost a gag strip. Nevertheless, the authors dreamt of an animation film at least since the early 2000s.
Although film studio Zig Zag film started working on a film already in 2002, Windig’s and De Jong’s dream never amounted to anything. That is, until the project got new backing and new support from veteran animator Piet Kroon in 2015.
Piet Kroon had ample experience in America, having directed the animation for ‘Osmosis Jones’ (2001) and having worked on stories for a wide variety of animated feature films, e.g. ‘The Iron Giant’ (1999), ‘The Tale of Despereaux’ (2008), ‘Rio’ (2011) and ‘Ferdinand’ (2017). Kroon wrote a completely new story for the film, and with this much of the charm of the original comic strip got lost, and I doubt whether Windig and De Jong are pleased with the end result.
The first aspect of the original comic strip that went out of the window was its family-friendly nature, despite being produced by Burny Bos, who produced some of the best Dutch live action children’s movies. The feature film is clearly directed to adults and has little to offer for younger audiences (in the Netherlands the film is advised for 12 years and older, that says enough). The second major change Kroon made was the setting. The original comic strip takes place in an undefined fantasy Netherlands, but the movie Heinz clearly lives in the center of Amsterdam, which incidentally is also the residence of the comic strip’s two authors.
A more profound and more disturbing change than these two is the change of character of the cat himself. In the comic strip Heinz certainly is cranky, and sometimes insufferable, but in the movie, he is a downright irresponsible drunkard and deadbeat. In fact, in the early scenes the cat is so unsympathetic one wonders why he must watch the cat’s immature antics in the first place. Heinz’s voice by Ruben van der Meer, on the other hand, is well-chosen.
Heinz’s girlfriend Dolly fares little better, as she has changed from a sweet love to a working-class shrew, while Heinz’s friend Frits is nastier and more unsympathetic than his comic book counterpart. Frits also suffers from a bad voice choice (Reinder van der Naalt). In fact, one must look hard for any sympathetic character in the film…
Kroon certainly has tried to put as many characters from the original comic strip as possible into the film, and thus the movie is simply crowded with characters, who mostly make little to no sense to anyone not familiar with the source material. These characters and the rather random inclusion of some gags from the original comic strip make the film too much of an inside joke. On the other hand, the story itself is entertaining enough: it involves time travel, takes Heinz to a remote volcano island and to New York, where he must battle an evil scientist from outer space. But the unsympathetic leads, the plethora of characters, and the random, and often repeated gags make the film a tiresome watch.
The film’s stylistic choices don’t help. The background art is pretty ugly and consists of reworked photo material against which the characters don’t read very well. The ocean is even live action footage. Again, with this method much of the original charm of the comic strip gets lost. The computer animation is a mixed bag. There are a lot of animation cycles, and especially the numerous background characters walk around like automatons with little to no life in them.
No doubt, these technical drawbacks result from an all too tight budget, as it’s a marvel that the film came about in the first place. Most charming are the depictions of Heinz’s fantasies, which consist of traditional animation of René Windig’s idiosyncratic drawings. It’s too bad only these little sequences were made this way.
In all, ‘Heinz’ is a disappointing movie that will attract small audiences, neither satisfying fans of the original comic strip nor anyone else. I cannot find any figures, but I am pretty sure the movie turned out to be a box office flop, and I regret to say unsurprisingly so.
Watch the Dutch trailer for ‘Heinz’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Heinz’ is available on DVD (Dutch only)
Director: Paul Driessen
Release date: 1975
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘An Old Box’ is Paul Driessen’s own variation on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale ‘The Little Match Girl’.
In his own film a poor man paints an old box in order to entertain people, but he is at the wrong corner of the town, and nobody passes by, while a short distance away a county fair takes place.
In this short Driessen introduces his idiosyncratic way of showing background art only when necessary. Thus lines indicating backgrounds appear from and dissolve into nothingness as we progress from scene to scene.
Likewise, Driessen’s color use is very limited, emphasizing the most important elements. Only in the very end the animator bursts into a fantastical multi-colored perspective animation before returning to the prevailing depressing grays of the rest of the short.
Watch ‘An Old Box’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘An Old Box’ is available on the DVD ‘Des histoires pas comme les autres’
Director: Paul Driessen
Release date: 1974
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Cat’s Cradle’ is an early film by Dutch animator Paul Driessen for the National Film Board of Canada.
This is one of Driessen’s most enigmatic films, in which the images seem to flow in a stream-of-consciousness-like fashion, bridged by a string spun by tiny spider. Somehow the tale, if there is one, has a retrograde character, but it’s hard to make head or tail of Driessen’s narrative in this short.
The background art again is very limited and made of monochromes, and Driessen’s typical morbid humor is very present. For example, the spider is handled by a man, who in turn turns out to hang at a gallows pole.
Watch ‘Cat’s Cradle’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Cat’s Cradle’ is available on the DVD ‘Des histoires pas comme les autres’
Director: Paul Driessen
Release date: 1972
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Air!’ was the first animated short Dutch animator Paul Driesen made for the National Film Board of Canada. In this very short film (it only takes two minutes) everything and everyone is gasping for air. Only at the very end we experience why.
Driessen makes the most of the barest background art: a monochrome background with a single horizontal line, which in each scene depicts something else. This is an early short by the Dutch master, but the film already showcases Driessen’s idiosyncratic animation style and morbid sense of humor.
Watch ‘Air!’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.nfb.ca/film/air_fr/
‘Air’ is available on the DVD ‘Des histoires pas comme les autres’
Director: Rosto A.D.
Release date: June 10, 2011
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
One of the most virtuoso and most idiosyncratic animated film makers ever to emerge from The Netherlands was Rosto (real name Robert Stoces). His films ‘(the rise and fall of the legendary) Anglobilly Feverson’ (2002) and ‘Jona/Tomberry’ created quite a stir, the latter winning the Grand Prix Canal+ prize at the Cannes Film Festival. In these fantastic films Rosto mixed live action, puppetry, and computer animation into a seamless mix. Moreover, they showed a unique if erratic voice that was completely its own.
‘The Monster of Nix’, Rosto’s most ambitious project, is no different. The film lasts half an hour and took six years to make. The short is essentially a musical with a rather post-modern tale-biting story, vaguely reminiscent of ‘The Neverending Story’. The film stars a boy called Willy (based on Rosto’s own son Max and aptly voiced by Joe Eshuis), who lives with his grandmother in a small village, surrounded by woods. Short after the film starts, Willy can’t find his grandmother. Even worse, many villagers have lost people and things, so Willy goes on a quest to seek his grandma and to find the evil monster behind this, finding strange creatures like Virgil, a giant swallow with human hands for claws and the woody “langemen” on his way.
‘The Monster of Nix’ boasts collaborators like Terry Gilliam (voicing a wood ranger), Tom Waits (voicing Virgil) and The Residents (performing two songs), as well as high production values. As expected from a Rosto film, the visuals are very strange, but compelling and overwhelming, seamlessly merging live action and animation to a unique mix. There are several rock music references, which are also typical of Rosto’s style, and there’s a spooky atmosphere akin to Tim Burton.
Rosto even composed the songs himself. Unfortunately, his score is more weird than attractive, and his story isn’t entirely convincing, either, reaching a rather dead point half way, never to recover entirely. But because of its unique atmosphere the film is well worth a watch.
Sadly, Rosto died in 2019, only fifty years old. His death is a grave loss to the Dutch animation world.
Watch the trailer for ‘The Monster of Nix’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Monster of Nix’ is available on DVD
Director: Marlies van der Wel
Release Date: September 26, 2015
Rating: ★★★★ ½
Review:
‘Zeezucht’ (which can be translated as ‘a longing for the sea’) tells about a man desiring to be able to dive into the sea from a young age on.
Van der Wel tells her tale by alternating images of the present with those of the past. In the scenes set in the present we watch the old man, complete with Jacques Cousteau-style red bonnet, doing some impressive beach combing during a stormy night. In the scenes from the past we learn how he came to love the sea, and how he made several attempts to dive into the deep with various contraptions, all to no avail.
Meanwhile his home on the dunes expands and expands by the use of flotsam and jetsam washed up by the sea. Then, when a giant fish factory ship sinks, the old man finally sees his chance…
‘Zeezucht’ is made in a very charming cut-out animation style, combining painted material with cut-out photographic material. There’s no dialogue, but the experiences and emotions of the sea-lover are greatly enhanced by the romantic music by Dutch band Benny Sings, and by the excellent sound design by Shark @ Haaifaaideluxe.
Watch ‘Zeezucht’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Zeezucht’ has been issued on DVD by the director herself in a limited number
Director: Michael Dudok de Wit
Release Date: 1994
Rating: ★★★★½
Dutch master animator Michael Dudok de Wit came into presence with this short, made as an artist at residence at the renowned Folimage animation studio in France.
In this film Dudok de Wit already establishes his trademark command of light and shadow. The setting is a monastery bathing in Summer sunlight. In fact, all background artwork, done by Dudok de Wit himself, is gorgeous. The film has a very simple premise (a monk wants to catch a fish), uses no dialogue, and knows a simple character design and excellent comic timing. Yet, the film is not a gag film, but a rather poetic meditation on fanaticism.
The monk’s movements are echoed by Serge Besset’s excellent score, which uses variations on the tune of la folía, based on those by baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli. Music and movement are in perfect tune and form another layer of delight. Unfortunately, the film ends rather puzzling, and it’s a little as if Dudok de Wit couldn’t dream of a more proper ending to his otherwise delightful short.
Watch ‘The Monk and the Fish’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Monk and the Fish’ is available on the The Animation Show of Shows DVD Box Set 3
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1960
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘The Eastern Treasure’ is based on the great Tom Poes comic strip ‘De achtgever’ (1957).
In this cartoon Ollie Bungle is visited by an Eastern treasurer and his obedient servant, called Kowtow. Ollie Bungle takes over the job as treasurer, and immediately the servant joins his side. In the end Tom Puss manages to get rid of him by making the servant into the treasurer.
The strong story of the comic strip is condensed to its bare essentials, and has lost most of its strengths. Moreover, the two Easterners hardly look that way. ‘The Eastern Treasure’ was the last of the Tom Puss shorts completed, before Toonder discovered he had been swindled. His Tom Puss television series was never aired, neither in the US, for which it had been made, nor anywhere else. A lot of money, effort and work had just been wasted on a scam.
‘The Eastern Treasure’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1960
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★
Review:
During a stormy night Ollie Bungle brags he can teach everyone everything, and in one evening, too.
He’s overheard by a wizard, who immediately places his lazy son under Ollie Bungle’s tutelage. The little brat changes all kinds of objects into beds for him to sleep in, makes a pen write the writing lines he has to do, and makes objects taunting Ollie Bungle. Meanwhile Ollie Bungle doesn’t teach the boy a thing. Yet, the wizard is content, as his son has learned many new tricks during that one evening.
This short is one of the weakest of the eight surviving Tom Puss films. Tom Puss has hardly a role in it, and even behaves uncharacteristically fearful. In one scene he even looks like a real cat, instead of his normal rational self.
‘Little Faustus’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1960
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
At the start of this cartoon Ollie Bungle is out of gas. He and Tom Puss meet a bearded fellow with a large box, and when they ask him for gas, he makes the large box change into a fuel station.
The little bearded man demonstrates that the box can change into virtually anything, and Ollie Bungle buys the machine on the spot. Unfortunately, the all-purpose machine turns out difficult to handle, and only causes for trouble.
The story makes little sense and is highly forgettable. Nevertheless, this short is noteworthy for its very beautiful limited background art.
Watch ‘The All-Purpose Machine’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The All-Purpose Machine’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1960
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Vengeance Valley’ is based on the Tom Poes comic strip ‘De wraakgier’ (which can be translated as ‘the revenge vulture’) from 1956.
The comic strip is one of the best in the series, and features Tom Puss encountering an island of vengeance-loving vultures. In the film the vultures inhabit a hick town in the mountains called ‘Vengeance Valley’. The whole concept of avenge, revenge and counter-revenge is played out well, and this short makes particularly well use of the limited animation. This makes this episode arguably the best of the whole series, despite the lame ending, in which a female vulture blows up the whole town, wiping it off the map, literally.
‘Vengeance Valley’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1959
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘The Wonder Shoes’ is one of the nine Tom Puss films the Toonder studios made in 1959-1960 for the American television market, which the series never reached.
This particular episode starts with Ollie Bungle capturing a large boot while fishing. Oddly enough he orders a shoe maker to make two shoes out of the boot. This is particularly puzzling as Ollie Bungle never wears shoes. The shoes possess a magic quality and fulfill Ollie Bungle’s wishes. So when he wishes them to walk to the moon, he is in serious trouble. Luckily, Tom Puss is there to save him.
‘The Wonder Shoes’ is a weak story that is saved by some slapstick comedy and silly situations, featuring criminal Bul Super and police officer Bulle Bas. Both characters are familiar to readers of the Tom Puss comics, but remain unnamed in the cartoon. Special mention should go to the minimal background art.
‘The Wonder Shoes’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1959
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★
Review:
‘The Bungle Cure’ is based on the Tom Poes comic strip ‘De Bommelkuur’ (1953), one of the weakest of all Tom Poes comics. And indeed, the film based on this story, is equally weak.
The short starts with Tom Puss driving the sick Ollie Bungle to the mountains, because the doctor has advised the sick bear to get some mountain air. Unfortunately, in the mountains they end up in a feud between two mountain tribes, the Grimps and the Knarks. The two tribes are equally fanatical in helping Mr. Bungle to heal. Their zeal make Mr. Bungle flee to a deserted island in a mountain lake, where Tom Puss discovers that Mr. Bungle has been cured, after all.
‘The Bungle Cure’ may function as a nice story for children, but has little to offer otherwise. As with the other Tom Puss & Mr. Bungle films the animation is extremely limited and the short relies heavily on dialogue. Most interesting is the minimal background art, which has maintained some of the panache of Marten Toonder’s own comic strips.
‘The Bungle Cure’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1959
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘The Weather Crystal’ is the second of nine Tom Puss films that were made for the American television market, but which were never released.
This short is based on a Tom Puss comic made for the Dutch Donald Duck magazine in 1959. In this film Tom Puss and Ollie find find a crystal that controls the weather. Ollie Bungle immediately conceives a plan to sell the weather, but as every client asks for something different, all goes wrong.
This is a very weak story, with both Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle behaving completely out of character (in Marten Toonder’s original comic strip none of the two would think of exploiting a commercial enterprise). Moreover, the short places the two in a human world, instead of the fable world they usually live in.
‘The Weather Crystal’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1959
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★★
Review:
In 1959 an unknown American distribution company asked Marten Toonder to produce some animated shorts for the American television market starring Toonder’s comic strip stars Tom Poes (Tom Puss, a white cat) and Olivier B. Bommel (Ollie Bungle, a large bear).
Nine films were conceived, but the Americans were displeased with Ollie Bungle’s voice, which was provided by a black man. Even worse, the so-called distribution company turned out to be a fraud, and these films were never shown anywhere.
The DVD accompanying Jan-Willem de Vries’s Dutch language book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’ has included eight of these films. They are a strange mix of Toonder’s elaborate cartoon style and Hanna-Barbera-like cartoon modernism. For example, Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle look more angular than ever, and both suddenly wear bow-ties, an all too obvious Hanna-Barbera influence. The animation in these shorts is very limited, and unfortunately the films rely too heavily on rather tiring dialogue, but this is countered by some effective staging.
‘The Magic Hat’ is clearly based on the Tom Poes story ‘De kniphoed’ (1955), and apart of Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle, features Bungle’s butler, Joost, magician Hocus Pas and a rather unrecognizable chief constable Bulle Bas (all unnamed in the cartoon). As the 65 page comic strip has been squeezed into a five minute film, the story has been greatly simplified. The result is no masterpiece, but still makes a pleasant watch, and the film is a good example of the huge influence the Hanna-Barbera studio had on the rest of the world.
‘The Magic Hat’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: Han van Gelder
Release Date: 1958
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
In this film director-animator Han van Gelder uses his unique technique of mixing cut-out with stop-motion for a short advertising film for Blooker cocoa.
The film tells about the Incas who invented cocoa, and how the Spanish conquistadors brought cocoa with them to Europe, where Jan Blooker’s factory uses only the best cocoa for its chocolate. The jump from the conquistadors to Blooker is a rather abrupt and not all too convincing one.
For this film Van Gelder uses UPA-inspired cartoon modern style characters and backgrounds. The film’s story isn’t too interesting, but these designs certainly make it a fun watch. The Blooker factory only lasted until 1962, but the brand is still available today.
Watch ‘Van Inca tijd tot Blooker tijd’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Van Inca tijd tot Blooker tijd’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: Børge Ring
Release Date: 1958
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
This is the story of a man full of debts who marries a rich woman for her money, but he gets remorse when he discovers the rich lady is bald.
The story is a humorous old Irish ballad called ‘Very Unfortunate Man’, translated by Annie M.G. Schmidt into Dutch and sung by Dutch actor Otto Sterman. Danish animator Børge Ring provides the story with strong cartoon modern images in the best UPA tradition, matched by equally stylized background art and color schemes by Alan G. Standen. The two give the otherwise rather Dutch film a very international feel, both in design and quality. The complete cartoon may be quite on the light side, it is nevertheless a delight to watch.
‘Lokkend goud of gouden lokken’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: Han van Gelder
Release Date: 1957
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘De verzonken klokken’ is a very beautiful animation short in which director Han van Gelder combines two-dimensional cut-out figures with three-dimensional sets to unique results.
The story is narrated by Dutch actor Ton Lutz, and written by Jan Gerhard Toonder, the brother of producer Marten Toonder, who based his narrative on legends from Zeeland.
The film tells about a sexton who falls in love with the beautiful girl Neeltje, but when she rejects him, he gets drunk and rings the church bells in the middle of the night, until the complete clock tower gets swallowed by the sea. In the end Neeltje marries school master Piepkema, but at their wedding they hear the church bells ringing from the sea. Piepkema provides a moral in rhyme that this ringing means that the sexton’s soul has found no rest, but Van Gelder shows us the Sexton at the bottom of the sea, happily in love with a mermaid, defying the classic Christian moral.
‘De verzonken klokken’ knows little, but effectively used animation. Van Gelder’s character designs and sets are simply gorgeous, and give the film a unique atmosphere. There are also some very convincing water rippling effects in the underwater scenes.
Watch ‘De verzonken klokken’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘De verzonken klokken’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: Maarten Koopman
Release Date: 2008
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Theatre Patouffe’ features a performance of lifeless objects, mostly of things on wheels, but also of some furniture performing acrobatics, and of three flying machines.
The objects and theater settings are beautifully made, and evoke a very surreal atmosphere, reminiscent of Jan Švankmajer’s films. Moreover, the film is full of clever ideas, and at one point one of the contraption even shows films of other contraptions performing, creating quite a Droste effect.
Unfortunately, the film suffers from the lack of a story arc. This renders the short unsatisfying, despite the intriguing images, and unique atmosphere
‘Theatre Patouffe’ is available on the DVD ‘Animazing! – Mindblowing Animation Films Supportes by the Netherlands Film Fund 1998-2008’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 