HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:
23.12.1974
"
Sweden has produced a wonderful animation and live-action feature set in
the magic Northland on Mid-summer´s night when the sun never sets.
It is one of the best children´s films in the years a delightful,
inventive fantasy which also conveys a true transcendent love of living,
in terms so simple even an adult will understand.
The
story, screenplay and song lyrics are by Beppe Wolgers, a friendly bearded
gentlemen who is also one of the two live characters in the movie. (The
other is his son, Jens Wolgers.)
Both
the live-action direction and the drawing for the animation were done by
Per Åhlin. With this picture, Wolgers and Åhlin join the top
creative ranks of children´s filmmaking.
The
wilderness landscape of Northern Sweden is utterly beatiful and spectacular.
The story progresses from placid lakes and great expanses of flowered meadows,
up waterfalls, to the top of snow-capped mountains.
Lennart
Carlsson´s glorious color photography breathes with the vigorating
forces of nature, as experienced by people close to their land.
The
animation is charming. Its relation to the live-action and landscape changes
constantly until you accept the equal reality of drawing and photograph.
The
music, by Toots Thielemans, uses back-country instruments(harmonicas, saws,
and simple strings) in joyous, lilting, melodies, songs of happiness and
wonder."
John
H. Dorr