Saturday, 24 December 2016

The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (1988)

We went into this knowing nothing of the books (apart from the suggestion that the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo lead character had some traits for survival similar to Pippi) or background and the opinions on the final product could not be more polarised.

It's no use examining the plot or plausibility of the film, that's not what it's about. The film is an exploration of a child's imagination and how belief, passion and a lust to squeeze every last ounce of pleasure from life can reap positive rewards. Pippi's imagination knows no boundaries and even in the face of dire circumstances she remains unbowed and disappears down another fantastical tangent. It would be all too easy to suggest it's a tactic for suppressing traumatic events, borne of a dead mother, a fantasist absent father and a string of surrogate parents when it's clearly just a ginger-haired loner growing up in a derelict mansion, plagued by predatory adults and sharing a room with a monkey and a donkey.

The adult found this film thoroughly entertaining purely for its refusal to follow the standard structure of  children's films and to just throw caution to the wind - anything is possible goddamit and we're going to film it that way. The child just thought it was all a bit ridiculous, didn't buy into it and provided the lowest score to date.

Adult score: 4/5
Child score: 1/5
First thing the child said when the film finished: Rubbish

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