Sleep sweetly, dream safely – review of the movie “Dreambuilders”

Spiral fired!

Growing up is not easy even under relatively normal conditions – anyone who has already passed the transition between childhood and adulthood (or at least adulthood) has had the opportunity to find out about it. For example, things get complicated when one parent disappears and the other decides to re-establish his life with another person. This was the situation for Minna – a girl living in the provinces with her beloved dad and hamster. The little stabilization of the child is disturbed by the arrival of new tenants – the partner of the father and her daughter Jenny. Differences between the girls make it difficult to establish a thread of understanding. Fortunately, Minna can escape to a different world every night – the world of dreams. A minor breakdown allows the girl to peek behind the scenes of making dreams. Her guide is Gaff – a blue creature responsible for the production of (!) Dreamlike visions of Minna. He will also learn that traveling between planes can also interfere with other people’s dreams, which also brings real effects after waking up. The girl takes advantage of this opportunity to try to convince the rude, phone-hungry Jenny, but the situation soon gets out of hand …

Identity theft is not a joke, Kim

In the field of family animations, cards on the market have been handed out for years by the aforementioned giant – Pixar (since 2006, part of the broad portfolio of Walt Disney corporation). The golden formula works both technically and conceptually, thanks to which, year after year, the studio’s productions are hosted on screens and they teach and entertain. It is no wonder then that even less known artists are trying to attract the attention of a wide audience with familiar-looking images. In the case of the animation of the full-length director, Kim Hagen, Jensen, debuting in the director’s chair, the similarities to the recent blockbuster from Californian studio are visible at first glance; both tell the stories of teenage heroines who are at a turning point in their still short life (moving, joining incomplete families), coping with their weaknesses,Inside Out are the emotions of the architects responsible for Jensen’s dreams. Of course, the stories differ in some details (for example, Pixar’s Riley does not actively participate in the events taking place in her head, Minna – on the contrary, actively influences the action), but the inspiration seems unquestionable. And there would be nothing wrong with that, after all, imitation is considered the highest form of flattery, if Danish animation did not take the form of complete mimicry at times, even including the font with which the title of the film is drawn.

Despite the quite interesting concept, the plot of Dreambuilders looks rather uninteresting. The script is written correctly, the action takes place at the right pace – without major downtime and bombardment of the viewer with overload of stimuli. It doesn’t put you to sleep, but it doesn’t engage you either. The animation is clearly aimed at younger audiences, without offering too much to the accompanying older kids. It is also difficult to cheer on the heroes – the scriptwriters have, admittedly, tempted to embryo the emotional shades of gray, but overlay them on the simplified psychology of one-dimensional, even flat characters. The moral of the screening is also shattering and smacks of intrusive didacticism.

And it could be so beautiful

The biggest disappointment, however, is the completely unused potential of the main story gadget – the backstage production of the characters’ dreams. Yes, production! Dreams and nightmares are created in individual boxes built on the model of film sets with all the benefits of their inventory – rewriting scripts, technical problems, terrifying, coldly calculating producers and capricious actors. This idea allows not only to activate deep layers of creativity, but also to hit a few self-referential gags. The dreams themselves – de factothe main attraction of the screening – but they are surprisingly… boring. The creators did not attempt to create colorful, inventive, abstract, fanciful, maybe a little illogical visions. What we finally see on the screen are safe scenes, but not very creative and conservative. It is a pity, because nothing stood in the way (well, the creative method – computer animation – gives basically unlimited possibilities) to let your imagination run wild and play with form.

The budget is also much more modest (compared to Hollywood titles). In the case of Pixar productions, these range from 30 (the first part of Toy Story) up to $ 200 million. With these sums, the estimated EUR 3.5 million allocated to the creation of Danish animation looks modest, although by European standards it is not a low amount. This difference is easy to notice in the technicalities and visual layer of the film – smooth animation, slightly angular renderings, blurred frames. Of course, it has its charm – the designers opted for slightly subdued colors and original, somewhat contractual character designs, which to some extent distinguishes the Danish production from the Californian competition, but it is difficult to get rid of the impression that certain decisions and artistic treatments used are intended to cover some shortages .

Children will not complain

Dreambuilders is not a film that will be remembered for a long time. At the same time, it is not so unsuccessful that the viewer would not be able to sit in the cinema from the first trailers to the final credits (it is also affected by the modest size – less than an hour and a half). Therefore, it may be a good alternative to high-budget competition from the USA. The young viewers who left the cinema room right in front of me seemed satisfied – so the mission, I believe, was accomplished.

We invite you to the movie Dreambuilders to the Cinema City cinema network!