Kekec (1951)
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Kekec Movie Review
Kekec is a 1951 Slovenian family adventure film directed by Joze Gale and starring Matija Barl. It’s such a wonderful children’s flick that is hard not to love.
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“Quickly send my greetings far away to my village home“
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In an alpine village, there lives a good grandpa on one side and a wicked man on the other side. He holds a girl hostage and it is up to Kekec to save her and to finally banish the evil man from the village. This is basically the Slovenian version of ‘Tom Sawyer’ and similar old adventure tales made for children. ‘Heidi’ also springs to mind due to the Alpine setting.
Apparently, this flick continues to be adored in its home country as so many people watched it as kids. It is a children’s classic for Slovenia unlike no other and it even spawned a couple of sequels, but with diminishing results in quality and success as this is the only movie that even managed to win some awards and to present at some big festivals.
It is obvious from the first moment why this movie is so beloved. Let’s first state the many positives and later I will state some negatives as well. The best part of this movie for me easily was the soundtrack. I absolutely adored the musical scenes that I wanted more of them as we only basically got a couple of songs with the second half being mostly devoid of them.
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Why did I love the songs so? Well, mostly because they reminded me of those Disney classics from yesteryear. Not the Renaissance stuff, but the Golden Age movies such as ‘Snow White’. That film must have been a strong influence given that the songs are similarly either operatic or catchy in style and that the animals are heavily emphasized throughout. The singing was great, the melodies were uniformly endearing and all these moments made the film more epic.
I also loved the adventure of the first half. Getting to see the villain for the first time was cool and particularly the hiking scenes were spirited and highly charming. I liked Kekec himself a lot. He reminded of Tom Sawyer pleasantly as he was so sweet, dynamic and fun. Matija Barl was terrific in this role and every child actor was actually stupendous here.
Kosobrin is fine and so is Mojca, but these are archetypal characters. Yes, it’s a fairy tale, but still more complexity could have been added to these portrayals. Nowhere is that more the case than with the story’s villain, Bedanec. I wanted more backstory for his villainous deeds, but he was still hugely entertaining as this over-the-top, fun villain. I just wish France Presetnik’s performance in the role wasn’t as theatrical because he was ridiculously overacting at times.
Kekec is archetypal and old-fashioned for better and for worse. Again, the childlike nature, the love that went into this project, the high adventure and the overall innocence were all amazing, but the characterization and especially the character dynamics were overly simplified with the film’s second half becoming a series of repetitive chase sequences.
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Kekec is visually arresting. Its black-and-white photography is polished, beautiful and emphasizing perfectly on the natural beauty of the Slovenian mountainous areas and the animals and plants that reside there. The score is superb and the direction is quite strong. As for the humor and dialogue, both are childish, but they work in the context of this story.
