Jason says: “All
things considered, DOCTOR PROCTOR’S FART POWDER has got to be one of
the least likely kids’ film imaginable, and I can’t help but imagine a
scenario where I’m recommending it to friends and family members with
young children and digging myself a bigger hole with everything I say
about it. After all, it comes from the director of the earnest but kind
of harsh (and crude) Fatso and is based on a series of books by Jo
Nesbø, the writer of some blackly funny, but very adult, crime
stories.
It’s also delightfully silly and high-spirited; the kids will love it.
“After all, they’ll probably empathize with Lise (Emilly Glaister), an
ordinary girl in a quaint Oslo neighborhood whose next-door neighbor
and best friend has just moved away and whose parents barely notice
she’s around. One neighbor moving out means another moving in, though,
and in this case that’s Nilly (Eilif Hellum Noraker), a tiny boy with
messy hair who is as excitable and curious as Lise is shy, which leads
them to investigate a cloud of smoke coming from the home of reclusive
inventor Doctor Proctor (Kristopher Joner). He’s down in the dumps,
too, afraid he will never invent something useful, especially since his
latest powder yields nothing but loud, odorless flatulence. The kids,
naturally, think this is fantastic, especially once they discover that
with enough, you can launch yourself in the air. At that point, it
grabs the attention of the neighborhood’s other inventor, the jealous
Herr Thrane (Alte Antonsen)
“How powerful is Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder? They eventually contact
NASA. It’s a thoroughly goofy and juvenile sort of set-up, but it’s
kind of a delight. There’s something great about a kids’ movie that
acknowledges that farts are funny, and rides that without ever making
it actually gross. As much as director Arild Fröhlich and
screenwriter
Johan Bogaeus milk the material, it’s almost always done without being
rude, which fits well with the colorful neighborhood that feels like a
kid’s playland – Proctor’s house and lab has a slide, Thrane’s has a
secret underground lab, and everybody wears perfect colorful costumes.
Even the bullies (Thrane’s kids, of course) are sort of perfect movie
bullies, pushing other kids around at their mean father’s behest and
kind of sad when it means they get left out of stuff. There’s danger in
the form of a great big snake living in the sewers – animated with the
sort of style that will never have it confused for the real thing – and
some slimy situations, but it’s almost all in fun.
“It helps a lot to have a couple of charming kid actors up front. Eilif
Hellum Noraker plays Nilly with unsinkable energy without ever getting
hyperactive, and though it’s a bit of a one-note performance, it’s one
he hits well, getting through a lot of silly material with a straight,
happy face and making every goofy bit funnier. Emily Glaister might be
a year or two older and has a slightly more complicated character, but
she’s also a delight in how she gets Lise to go from this droll, kind
of sad kid to sharing a lot of Nilly’s enthusiasm. Meanwhile,
Kristoffer Joner is kind of great as Doctor Proctor, managing to make
the guy both kind of timid and deadpan. It’s absolutely believable that
he lets these kids drag him along while still getting some funny lines
in, and he really wears the heartbreak established in a flashback well.
“That flashback scene runs the risk of being perhaps a little too
earnest and sad; a lot of the movie runs on a sort of kid logic, and
the tragedy of how much time Proctor has perhaps wasted is a little
heavier than that. Of course, that can also be seen as what makes the
movie a little more than disposable, a contrast between kids who see
something wonderful in an invention that seems to have no practical use
whatsoever and adults who are, in various different ways, just going
through routines. Fröhlich and company don’t see the need to bring
this
up explicitly, instead having fun with kids flying through the air on
their own wind, shooting off cannons for the holidays, and dealing with
giant snakes in a way that’s close to pure fun.
“(Fair warning for parents who raise their kids right and show them
subtitled movies rather than likely-terrible dubs as soon as they can
handle it: Scandinavian folks seem a bit less uptight about a little
bad language getting into their kids’ movies than Americans, leading to
a moment early on that had ‘morons’ as the subtitle for a different
word beginning with ‘m’. I laughed at this, but I don’t have kids.)
“Since I don’t have kids, I don’t know how much weight my
recommendation holds, but this sure seems like something elementary
schoolers would go for – and for all I know, Nesbø’s books are
popular
enough that American studios are leaving money on the table by not
trying to distribute this. Just remember, when it finally does become
available – you might want to wait until they’re a little older before
showing them the other stuff this team has done. 4 cats
“Seen 1 August 2014 in the rented apartment (Fantasia Festival,
DVD-on-laptop) ” |
