Neighbor & Neighbor have a new house! (2018)

Directed by: Marek Beneš | 57 minutes | animation, short film, family, comedy | Dutch voice cast: Kees Prins, Siem van Leeuwen

Who doesn’t know them: the clumsy do-it-yourselfers and neighbours: Buurman en Buurman. The two have been working on their comeback in recent years and as an extension of that they come to the big screen after ‘Buurman & Buurman – Best friends for 40 years’ (2015) with the film ‘Buurman & Buurman have a new home’. In this film, the Neighbors run into all sorts of problems in and around their homes. For example, they suffer from a mole, they get to work to sweep their chimney and build a fence. Of course, this is not without a struggle and that is precisely the unique selling point of these stories.

The film can be judged in two ways. First (and most importantly) through the eyes of the children for whom this film is intended. ‘Buurman & Buurman have a new house’ is exactly what they will expect from a Buurman & Buurman film. They are bunglers, who in the search for a solution make things worse than they were in the first place; there’s plenty of slapstick in it and each story ends with a heartfelt “A je to!” (which is a Czech exclamation and means “That’s it!”). For the viewers, this recognizability is a form of safety. No child will wonder why this isn’t different from what they expected.

And therein lies the pitfall for the second group of viewers: the parents. ‘Neighbor & Neighbor have a new house’ is very much the same. The biggest pain point may be that it is actually not a film as a whole, but a collection of seven small stories. This makes it feel like you are watching a DVD with your child, but on a big screen. And that’s a shame. In 2018, for example, Bob the Builder came to the cinema with a lot of the same, but in one exciting story. That makes the cinema experience extra special and unfortunately that is missing from the Neighbors.

Ultimately it is fairer to judge the film through the eyes of the younger fellow man. The film is intended for them and it will therefore not disappoint any child. Parents should just ignore the clumsily contrived form of storytelling. And that’s it!