Klaus Review
It's Christmas soon! Looking for a good film with seasonal theme to watch during the holidays? Well, I got you covered!
Last Christmas I watched this relatively new animated film Klaus and really loved it! Actually I didn't have high hopes for it, just expected another familiar story about Santa Claus, but this movie does it in a fresh way and from a different perspective than others and presents the whole story without magic and the whole thing just works amazingly well. Another thing that made me hooked was the animation style that made me confused about the fact was it 2D or 3D and want to learn about the animation process of it.
Klaus is Netflix's first original animated film and part of an effort to build a library of family programming as it competes with new streaming rivals including Disney+. It was released on November 15th last year and received almost 30 million views during it's first month.
SPOILERS AHEAD! The story starts to follow Jesper, who's failing to become an functional adult (relatable, isn't it) and step outside of the comfort zone of his father's fortune.
This entitled little sh*t.
He's supposed to become a postman, but after proving himself to be the worst one in the whole academy, his father sends him to work in a northern city as a last chance to prove himself worth the inheritance.
Makes me think of a foreigner coming to Finland.
And first impressions of finnish people.
The place turns out to be gloomiest and unhappiest on Earth, both with it looks and because of it's hateful citizens who have a civil war going on and even the kids seem to compete with dislikableness of our hero. Match made in heaven. It's satisfying to see Jesper's pathetic attempts to get the citizens to send even one letter to get back to his lazy lifestyle.
Things start to look brighter when Jesper goes to see the last citizen he hasn't approached; beard-covered and quiet, frighteningly strong looking craftsman Klaus. When it's revealed that he has a lot of toys that he made for the kids he never had and they make an agreement to send the toys for kids of the town, it's clear where the story is going, but it's still enjoyable to watch.
First one kid receives a gift.
And soon there is a line of kids in the post office.
"A true selfless act always sparks another" is such a beautiful affirmation of Klaus that we see in action through the whole movie, although Jesper has his own selfish motives to get the post system to work and get the hell out of there. But little by little the shift in his motivation can be seen. I really like that everything that happens to him is of his own doing and not by some magical force.
Someone has their own intentions.
All the characters were interesting and had some dimension. I really like that instead of elves there are Saami people and they are speaking their own language instead of english and everyone is still able to work for a common goal.
One of the main characters, Saami girl Margu is essential for Jesper's transformation. Apparently Sergio Pablos, the director of the film, was at first planning to make them speak english, but realized that it worked so much better if they spoke only Saami. He went all the way to Norway to find and record a little Saami girl for the movie and their relationship was very similar to that with Jesper and Margu, because she didn't speak english and he didn't speak Saami. They had to do the whole recording session through translation and mimicry, and Pablos brought a lot of that to the movie.
And someone is cute.
If you are not convinced by the story line, watch it at least for the visuals. The film is stunningly beautiful and amazing animation work. With it's storybook look and unique style it doesn't make Disney's mistake of leaning into the nostalgia of 2D, but creates something new. It makes you think is this even 2D or perhaps 3D?
No magic but strong connection to nature.
My face most of the movie.
2D it is! But the medium was pushed for a unique look.They added a lighting department and a texturing department on top of the traditional pipeline.
"The goal was to keep all that was great about 2D but replace what was not necessarily a choice but a limitation. So it would feel old but new somehow. But there was no attempt ever at making 2D look more like 3D. That was never the attempt. The intention was to make this look like a piece of visual development that you that you would find in an art book for an animated movie, but put it directly onto the screen without getting into the grinder of the usual look."
-Sergio Pablos, the director of Klaus
Some clean ups of the Claus movie.
Mood.
And after this texturing.
The whole production from the beginning to the finished film took two and half years and that's reasonable time for a 90 minute film. Klaus was very successful in Netfix and that's promising for the future of 2D animation.
Watch it if you haven't already! Very potential movie to add to your yearly Christmas watch list! :)
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