Gekijôban Furandaasu no Inu (1997)
Genre: Animation / Drama
Duration: 105 minuten
Alternative titles: De Hond van Vlaanderen / The Dog of Flanders / フランダースの犬
Country:
Japan
Directed by: Yoshio Kuroda
Stars: Makoto Tsumura and Sakura Tange
IMDb score:
7,7 (834)
Releasedate: 15 March 1997
This movie is not available on US streaming services.
Gekijôban Furandaasu no Inu plot
An animation film set in Belgium in the 19th century. Nello is a poor orphan boy who lives with his grandfather. He is very good at drawing and often goes to the large church to look at the work of the famous painter Rubens. Then a competition is organized for young artists. Nello, encouraged by his girlfriend Alois, is eager to get involved. Then Grandpa's health deteriorates and there is a debt with the landlord. Can Nello handle all problems?
Reviews & comments
Film Pegasus (moderator films)
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- 31191 messages
- 5473 votes
A film that can compete between Hotaru no Haka and the story Sans Famille (Remi alone in the world). A story that the Flemish mainly know thanks to Willy Vandersteen with the version of Suske & Wiske. Around that period, the controversy in Antwerp about the location also started. The story was appropriated by the Antwerp southern district of Hoboken. The description is rather a mixture of what the English writer Maria Louise Ramé saw during her tour of Flanders. However, Antwerp itself and the circumstances in what was then Flanders are quite accurate.
And that is the strength of the film. Where most (especially Hollywood versions) give their own interpretation to the story with even a different ending, this animated film stays very close to the original book. And then you immediately see that the strength of the film is clearly in the story. The animation itself is pretty basic, but that gets the job done in and of itself. The music is also beautiful and immediately puts you in the mood. I partly follow Onderhond's previous message about the visual aspect. With a double feeling, because that simplicity is part of its strength. Although a film that honors Rubens and painting, and which is set in beautiful Flanders, can give that little bit more to put everything in the spotlight a bit more figuratively.
This story may certainly receive additional recognition at some point. The fact that it is an English book and the controversy (which still partly exists) about Hoboken as a location, holds everything back. Antwerp is gradually embracing this beautiful story, with a new statue for the Antwerp cathedral recently instead of the black stone of the past.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Filmkriebel
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- 10013 messages
- 4679 votes
Beautiful gripping and sometimes sad to heartbreaking film based on a somewhat forgotten classic English literary work. A simple chronicle that mainly deals with the social misery of the mid-19th century : poverty, scarcity, class differences. But also animal abuse, which was very progressive in that period. The drawing style is 1970s-80s and therefore quite classic for an anime from 1997. For example, I often had to think of the Japanese anime series "Alone in the World" (after the book by Hector Malot) that I saw as a child, with a similar story of abject poverty. However, the simplicity of the graphics does not make the film any less emotional. The nostalgically evoking images of a rural and peaceful Flanders with its windmills, grassy meadows, bridges and farming villages are also heart-warming to see.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Fisico
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- 10039 messages
- 5398 votes
It feels a bit uncomfortable to see a film with a Flemish approach as a Japanese production. It's a story little known to us I think. Bizarre actually, because if I see cultural urge from Flanders, then they could do something with Antwerp and Rubens' Descent from the Cross. At the time, a story was indeed intertwined through the comics of Suske & Wiske, a nice comic by the way: "The menacing thing", we are talking about the mid-80s, but that's it. The menacing thing - Suske en Wiske no. 201. The fairy tale "The Girl with the Matches" Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen is a derivative of the story.
A tragic story, very beautifully designed by this Japanese anime. Heartwarming and tearing at the end. Pretty basic and simple in terms of drawing style, but I think that helps to reinforce the story. Looking back after a long time and not complaining.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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