Torill Kove's Oscar-winning short "The Danish Poet" is a look at how we as humans come to be who we are. Another thing that I derived from it is the question of how different we really are from each other. Much like how the characters aren't sure which Scandinavian country certain people are from, we often aren't sure about our background. Some people will claim to have only one type of ancestry, but one can't know for certain. The truth is, we're all probably mixed.Other than that, it's an interesting cartoon. The animation isn't the most innovative, but it has a good plot, and that's what matters. In focusing on how her parents met, the storyteller reminds us that we all had to come from somewhere.

This short film is about a series of coincidences and accidents that led to the birth of the woman who wrote the story."The Danish Poet" is surprisingly heartwarming. The animation is simple with lots of soft colours and black borders on all items. It almost looks like a cartoon for infants. I find this particularly charming, as it enables us to regress to our childhood to appreciate all the little things around us that we no longer notice. The story itself is heartwarming and engaging. It made me smile from the heart, which is not something many films can do."The Danish Poet" is a beautiful film. Watch it if you have a chance.

I've seen three of the five shorts nominated for the Oscar and this short is the best of the three I've seen. I'm not at all surprised that it was the winner. Since it would be difficult to discuss this short without going into at least a few details, let this serve as a spoiler warning: The basic idea behind this short regards the importance of random chance in all our lives. Narrated (very effectively) by Liv Ullman, with no other vocal work save hers, the story unfolds gradually and softly, with little touches of humor here and there. There are quite a few playful nudges at Danes and Norwegians throughout.The story centers on a Danish poet and his hit-and-miss relationship with a Norwegian farmer's daughter. The relationship has a good many twists and turns, with a logic chain made up of all sorts of random events which change the course of various lives. Barking dogs, inattentive mail carriers, slippery boards, a funeral and hairstyles all take their turn at changing things, all leading to the marvelous conclusion.This short is available (on DVD) from the National Film Board of Canada and is well worth watching. Highly recommended.

I know Susanne Bier and Søren Pilmark were also nominated for an Oscar in 2007 and didn't win, but this movie won instead, making it a good substitute, since the story is about a Dane.The story is about a Danish poet, Kasper Jørgensen, who lives in Copenhagen, but one day runs out of creativity and goes to Norway on holiday to search for inspiration. There he finds a girl whom he falls in love with, but alas, she is engaged to be married against her will with a local farmer who is the son of her fathers best friend. Instead she vows to never cut her hair until she can be with Kasper again, a promise that she keeps (making her hair look like Marge's from "The Simpsons"). And the story continues from that point..I'm not gonna spoil anything else, but it's all about chance and coincidences.Now, the animation itself isn't that great, although it is very different from how "normal" cartoons looks like, reminds me of the Alfons Åberg-cartoons (or Alfie Atkins as he's called in English).I haven't seen the competition, so I can't say if it was worthy of winning, but it was certainly a very good short movie, with a classical love-story in a new environment. There were many funny details, like the people on the ferry between Denmark and Norway only being drunk (Swedes?) or backpackers, and that the postal office never can be trusted (just like in real life).. thank God for E-mails!