This live action movie is a very charming adaptation that is extremely faithful to the animated TV series we watched as children.
|||Heidi
DIRECTOR: Alain Gsponer
CAST: Anuk Steffen, Bruno Ganz, Isabelle Ottmann, Katharina Schuttler, Peter Lohmeyer, Jella Haase, Quirin Agrippi
CLASSIFICATION: PG
RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes
RATING: ***
This live action movie is a very charming adaptation that is extremely faithful to the animated TV series we watched as children. Johanna Spyri’s tale of the little orphan with the cheerful disposition who goes to live with her grandpa in the Swiss Alps makes for a sweet family film.
In South Africa, we watched the ’70s anime series in Afrikaans so no wonder we now get a dubbed Afrikaans version of this originally German film. The marketing principle is sound, but the dub is awkward.
The voice used for Heidi is too mature and the villagers sound like a gaggle of people from a radio series; ghost voices that aren’t anchored to their characters. There is also an English dub available on our local circuit.
Story-wise the film works and the actors are well cast in that they not only look like Spyri originally described them, but are natural and convincing actors. Heidi (Steffen) is deposited by her aunt Dete (Schinz) at her grandfather’s (Ganz) and her open-hearted attitude and obvious intelligence quickly wear down the curmudgeon down.
A few months of goat-herding with new friend Peter (Agrippi), and Heidi is loving life in the Alps. Wide shots of the flower-filled fields nestled among the snow-topped mountains are impossibly perfect, so when the children agree this is the most beautiful place ever, you sigh along.
Heidi’s interaction with her grandfather is filled with fun in the snow and great food shots, so even as you understand it is a hard-scrabble existence, their relationship is delightful and warm.
Aunt Dete returns to whisk Heidi away to the big city where she meets invalid Klara (Ottman) and the strict governess, Fraulein Rottermeier.
While spoilt, lonely Klara immediately takes to the friendly Heidi, Rottermeier decries the child’s country ways and of course, you remember where this goes.This Heidi is less bratty than the child of the book, but Schinz has such an open smile you are taken in by the child’s guileless ways.
There are no huge plot twists or crafty CGI; this is an old-fashioned film driven by characterisation and narrative.
The grandfather undergoes a growth of sorts, the two little girls definitely learn much about helping each other and the film even dares show a bit of class snobbery from the villagers toward the grandpa, and in Klara’s dad’s preconceptions.
Heidi is an entertaining family film that is a good in to talk to little children about preconceived notions about old people.If you liked the animated Heidi, or Pete’s Dragon, you will like this.