Eric Schissel

I agree with some negative reviews: not for children. It isn’t: death and danger have too close a presence. Pretty fun for adults, though.

A little stunned at some of the poor reviews it’s been receiving. Some parts don’t work for me, especially the too-cutesy, even painful ones with the dwarves; but the rest is fun.

I’ve now seen this brief animated film a few times. It feels perfect and understandably wrenchingly emotional, even before the most topical material and just as a treatment of the destructive effects of loss- how losing their child comes next to tearing them and their relationship apart (the subtlety, how we slowly understand the significance of each element such as the blue patch on the wall and what it reminds the father of, seems to me to be just the right thing too.) Not sure why I decided to rewatch this week, but actually it was a good idea.

Impressive and ambitious adaptation of an impressive and psychologically ambitious (though briefer) novel (.. as to ambition I'm not speaking of length anyway.) The ending of the last episode has gotten some flak, I think, but I think it was actually quite good and I'm not sure how it could have ended better in a way that would have measured up to this at least as much as this ending did...