11 April 2010

How to Train Your Dragon


Cinéma Lux and the animated film with Vikings and Dragons, directed by Dean deBlois and Chris Sanders.

This is - among other things - a story about the young viking Hiccup who is to young and fragile to be accepted among the other vikings, even the younger ones.
He is always kept aside when the dragons attack their village on the mountainside - taking their sheeps and other animals they can find - and as Hiccup is the son of the chief/herse, the latter expects him to become a real tough viking, not a sissy.
Hiccup will however use other means than brutal force in order to tame the dragons, as the film will reveal.
One day he fires a sling, using some sort of catapult, towards one of the worst but most unknown dragons.
He tells everyone that he has captured this creature but noone believes in him.
He decides to try to find the dragon, in order to show the others. He finds it tied by the rope he shot towards him and in conformity with the viking-rules, he decides to kill it.
However he is not able to do so. Instead a sort of 'friendship' develops between the two, not least after Hiccup construct a sort of 'fin' in order to replace one who is hurt.
He uses the dragon as his 'flying horse' and when the village is going to fight the last giant among the dragons, a giant that all the other dragons feed, he uses his dragon in the fight.
This is a very charming history of impossible friendship, on how to build bonds between creatures fighting each other just because one doesn't understand the other part.
It's a story of courage and the advantage of using the brain to a greater extent than the muscles, on how to transform ancient traditions, built on tales about creatures whos savagery often is exaggerated (think wolf and man).
It's also very well animated and even the skin on the vikings resembles our real skin, the hair is 'blowing in the wind' as real hair even though the characters as such are exaggerated when it comes to size and looks.

There were a great number of children in the audience and we as well as them enjoyed this film.

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