Review: Valkenhart – Falkehjerte (1999)

Directed by: Lars Hesselholdt | 80 minutes | family | Actors: Fanny Bernth, Stefan Jürgens, Alessandro Haber, Loris Tocci, Raimondo Guida, Simone La Vecchia, Mirko Casaburo, Lina Sastri, Kristian Emdal, Sebastian Jessen, Aksel Leth, Christina Meyer, Sasia Mølgaard, Ramona Prisco, Henrik Rasmussen

What do you do if you live for birds as a nine-year-old, are an outsider at school, have parents who hardly care about you? Right, then you can find any free moment in the forest to watch your favorite animals through binoculars. Katja is nine and lives in a suburb of Copenhagen. The girl climbs trees like the best and this comes in handy when she is attacked during a storm and wants to save the falcon that got into trouble due to the strong wind. Katja takes the animal under her wing and seeks shelter. The first dry spot she finds turns out to be a truck, Katja and the falcon, now called Kiik, crawl into it and Katja falls asleep. When she wakes up, it turns out she has ended up in Italy.

Obviously this sounds rather unbelievable – from Denmark to Italy, it takes more than 15 hours by car, let alone a truck. Fortunately, this does not detract from the film, as enough happens to make the viewer forget about this imperfection. There is a haze of magical realism about the film, and the contrast between Denmark, where Katja only seemed happy in her forest, and the stranger Italy, where she is initially just as alone as in her motherland, could hardly be more apparent. outlined. In Italy it is immediately accepted. Upon arrival in Italy, Kiik almost immediately flies away and Katja is now all alone in a foreign country, whose language she does not speak. However, she is flexible enough to adapt immediately to her new situation;

She soon befriends four Italian brothers, especially the eldest Francesco (Loris Tocci) and the youngest, Carlo (Mirko Casaburo) seem to understand her. The first night the boys smuggle her into the house, followed by a very funny scene in which the boys cover up food for her. The next night the friendship has grown so much that the boys’ mother is also involved and Katja learns how to eat tagliatelle. When Katja sees Kiik again, it turns out that he has been captured by a market merchant and she must collect 200,000 lira to buy him back. The enterprising children do everything they can to get the money together. This produces a number of amusing scenes. There is an additional danger in the form of an Italian bird collector, that the falcon would like to add to his collection. Set up or understood. Speaking of understanding: it is fascinating to see how the children manage to communicate with each other and how within a few days Katja can manage herself reasonably well in Italian. Incidentally, the spoken word is not even of great importance in ‘Valkenhart’, the visual all the more. The idyllic pictures of the Italian harbor town, the images of the children, it gives a wonderful summer feeling. Great movie for the whole family! The idyllic pictures of the Italian harbor town, the images of the children, it gives a wonderful summer feeling. Great movie for the whole family! The idyllic pictures of the Italian harbor town, the images of the children, it gives a wonderful summer feeling. Great movie for the whole family!