Rating: D
Dir: Kaspar Munk
Star: Gerda Lie Kaas, Sonja Richter, May Lifschitz, Albert Werner Rønhard
a.k.a. Vildheks
Or as it should perhaps be known, Harriett Potter and the Underwhelming Knock-off. This is based on a six-volume series of books by Danish writer Lene Kaaberbøl. But while the makers of Potter decided to tell the story in eight films over a decade, creating an unstoppable cultural force by the time of the final movie, this gallops through the entire saga in a single 95-minute movie. It may be why it feels so lacking in impact, and little more than a cynical cash-in. Because basically you have a gender-swapped Harry, with a rather more pointedly Wiccan environment. Otherwise, you’re still stopping the ultimate evil from… whatever. I lost interest, to be quite honest.
The heroine here is 12-year-old Carla (Lie Kaas), who suddenly discovers the ability to talk to animals. Her mother has been fearing this was going to happen and calls in Carla’s “aunt”, Isa (Richter), who trains the young girl in the ways of the wild witch. There’s a whole community there, including her familiar, a human/cat called Oscar (Rønhard). I liked this, because our cat is called Oscar too. I do not believe he has any magical powers, unless sleeping and being irritable count. Anyway, back in the movie, we get YA Fiction Cliche #3. Carla is the Chosen One, who is destined to stop bad witch Bravita Blodsunge from returning, helped by her acolyte, Chimera (Lifschitz), and… whatever. I refer you to my previous paragraph.
From a visual point of view, this is quite nice, with a reasonable amount of money spent on it, and special effects that are understated. They’re typically used to enhance scenes, rather than being scenes, which is a pleasant change. The main problem is the plot, which quite simply does not do anything near sufficient to hold the viewer’s interest. There’s no sense of progression for the lead character, who seems simply to accept her entire situation without even the slightest indication of its highly unusual nature. Is this Scandinavian aplomb or something? It could be a result of the film only being available in a dubbed version, but I’m not sure her expression changed at any point. “So I’m the chosen one who has to save the world. Ok.”
Perhaps if we’d been given time to grow into these characters – which it seems the novels provide – then it might have made a difference. Instead, elements like Oscar seem no more than generic fantasy place-holders, who serve no particular purpose. Chimera is inadequately built-up as the villainess, and the final confrontation is rushed and underwhelming in the extreme. Little wonder that the film ends with Clara simply going back to school, and not even bothering to tell any of her class-mates what had happened during her time away. I couldn’t have been arsed to talk about it either. I was hoping for a Nordic noir version of the fantasy genre, rather than something as blandly uninteresting as Danish pop music.