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 is one of the best animated shorts I have ever seen.Sure, there is no CGI, no wow effects, and none of the commonalities of modern animation. In fact this is a 2D animation, that will remind some people of the images of Vicky the Viking series of the 1970s.However, this short has something that most modern animation films do not have, and that is what makes it unforgettable to me. The secret of The Danish Poet is that tells an amazing story, which happens to be based on real events. This is a story that speaks of serendipity, synchronicity, and the inter-relatedness of the world. A story that shows a world in which even the bad stuff that happens to us can take us to amazing places and be meaningful. A story that shows that every twist and turn in life is a creative process. The Danish Poet is, in the end, a story about love minus the cheese, told in a simple, funny and magical way.The short is beautifully narrated, it has a point, it tells a complete story, it makes you feel and think. Fantastic.

This is an animated story about "chance" and "coincidence" ruling our lives, something the author apparently believes because it's stated by narrator in the first few sentences of the film that "we are all just seeds floating up there in the space waiting for someone to get us." With an atheistic outlook like that, it's no wonder this won an Oscar for "best animated short." Had the opposite belief been put into film, it wouldn't have stood a chance to be nominated. Anyway, Torill Kove, a Norwegian animator/filmmaker and current resident of Canada, gives us this "cute" story in which a series of circumstances all make for a happy ending. The illustrations are half the fun of watching this 15-minute award-winning short. They artwork is clean and colorful and a treat for the eyes.Liv Ullman does a nice job of narrating the film but I would have rather had a variety of voices. Having a female voice all the male characters sounded out of place.I wouldn't be surprised if Miss Kove did this story tongue-in-cheek, knowing that actually everything happens for a reason, not that all of life is sheer chance. No one is dumb enough to believe that, which is why this is a good fairy tale.

I watched the Academy Awards and saw this win, and of course, hadn't heard of it. I stuffed the memory of it in the back of my head and when I finally remembered, finally looked it up online, I was blown away by how wonderful it is.The Danish Poet is a great story, that I've often considered to be true, in that maybe the little things in our lives do shape our path. It's full of these wondrous little moments that make you sigh, make you laugh, make you say "awww..." It's quite probably the best film I've seen this year, and given that it's 15 minutes long, that's saying something...