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Junior and Karlson
A Soviet cult cartoon, so untypical for a Western viewer, especially, a little one. A boy named Malysh ("A Little One") suffers from solitude being the youngest of the three children in a Swedish family. The acute sense of solitude makes him desperately want a dog, but before he gets one, he "invents" a friend - the very Karlson who lives upon the roof. So typical for the Russian culture spirit of mischief, which is, actually, never punished, and the notion that relative welfare not necessarily means happiness made the book by Astrid Lindgren and its TV adaptations tremendously popular in the Soviet Union and nowadays Russia and vice versa - somewhat alienated to the Western reader and viewer (see User's comments below). However, both the book and the cartoon are truly universal - entertaining and funny for the children and thought-provoking and somewhat sad for grownups.
| Release : | 1968 |
| Rating : | 8 |
| Studio : | Soyuzmultfilm, |
| Crew : | Director, Story, |
| Cast : | Vasiliy Livanov Klara Rumyanova |
| Genre : | Adventure Animation Family |
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Reviews
Sorry, this movie sucks
It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
"Junior and Karlson" is a Soviet animated short film from soon 50 years ago. It was directed by Boris Stepantsev and written by Boris Larin based on a children's story by famous Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. Here where I live it is called "Karlsson vom Dach". Anyway, this is about a little boy, who is very unhappy that he won't get a dog from his parents as a gift. Instead, he has an imaginary(?) friend for the entire movie, with whom he causes lots of chaos, but also flies around the city. The ending was nice and somehow happy and sad at the same time, but everything before was just not great in my opinion. Neither convincing in terms of drama, nor in terms of comedy. Something in-between and for me the greatest problem maybe was that I did not find Karlson interesting or likable at all. Not recommended. If you still want to watch it, make sure you get a good set of English subtitles, unless you speak Russian.
Indeed it's a very fun cartoon to watch, the actors made the cartoon characters come to life and there were many memorable moments. However, there are some moments in the film that adults may not notice but which may be somewhat harmful to a young viewer. To make a long story short, it shows kids a role model, a role model doing something bad. There are several scenes where a kid starts crying for petty reasons (such as not getting a dog on his birthday) and many parts where the kid is sitting on a window sill or walking on the roof (which may lead a young viewer to believe that these activities are safe). Anyway, if you're old enough to be able to see what's good and what's bad, it's definitely a fun film to watch. If you're young and take everything in, I recommend against it.
