The Danish Poet (Director Torill Kove)

I gained a new appreciation for storytelling when I lived in North Africa. The people of Morocco and Mauritania maintain an oral culture that we in the west have lost, for the most part, in the age of television and the Internet and iPods and Wiis.

I remember sitting on a train from Marrakech to Casablanca, listening as a tiny, old, frail looking woman held an audience of young businessmen spellbound for 20 minutes as she told them a story about someone in the market trying to swindle her earlier in the day.

Another time, my friend Ahmed and I sat in a café in the medina in Casablanca, and he listened for ages as I recounted the beautiful story of the Prodigal Son – at the end, when the father runs out to meet his son who has squandered his inheritance and come home in shame, there were tears in Ahmed’s eyes and he was genuinely touched.

It was amazing! I don’t think that would never happen here.

But I think inherently, deep inside, we still have an appreciation for the simple, beautiful, storytelling of the type done in “The Danish Poet” -- an animated short film with Canadian connections.

The film, which probes the nature of coincidence, is a joint venture between a Norwegian director, the National Film Board of Canada, and is set largely in Denmark. I, obviously, am from Canada, and two close friends whom I travelled with in North Africa, are from Denmark and Norway. Weird eh?

I watched “The Danish Poet” today at one of the personal viewing stations at the NFB on Richmond Street – to which my friend bought me a yearly membership for my birthday. Thanks Amelia!

The film, which is only 15 minutes long, starts with the Scandinavian-sounding narrator posing some of the key questions of the film over a softly glowing, animated starry sky.

“I used to think everyone was adopted from outer space,” she says. “That before we were born we were little seeds floating around in the sky waiting for someone to come and get us. The selection process was random and there was no rhyme or reason as to who our parents would be. In a way I was right because our chance to be born hinges on our parents.”

Then she begins telling the story about the fascinating series of coincidences and timely intersections that led to her parents meeting, all the while providing very funny insight into Scandinavian relations, and with brilliantly simple, mesmerizing animation that I couldn’t look away from.

A Danish poet named Kasper has writer’s block. At his wits end, he visits a psychologist who tells him to take a vacation.

“But where can you go if you have no money and you don’t speak French?” he replies.

“What about Norway? It’s cheap and they’re practically Danish,” the doctor replies (It’s a joke my Danish friend Daniel would find hilarious, but my Norwegian friend Gjermund would reject outright.)

So Kasper takes the advice and starts doing some research about Norway. He comes across an epic novel by a Norwegian writer that tells the tale of a young man who falls in love with a girl who is engaged. Despite her father’s wishes she breaks off the engagement to marry the young man, and regrets the decision for the rest of her life.

Inspired by the story, Kasper plans a trip to meet the author.

I’ve been to the Copenhagen harbour where Kasper sets out from for Norway, and it’s captured beautifully and realistically – though in caricature-style -- in the film, complete with colourful, tall narrow buildings, beer-swilling, jolly Danes and vivid, watercolour skies, contrasting with the solid, chunky colours used in the animation.

After arriving in Norway, Kasper gets caught in the rain, and takes shelter at a local farm, owned by a family, it turns out, that is related to the writer whom Kasper was planning to visit.

He quickly falls in love with Ingeborg, the farmer’s daughter, who “tends to the chickens and romantically maps the stars above the farm,” and regains his inspiration.

“Ingeborg you changed my life. Ingeborg please be my wife,” he writes in a poem dedicated to her.

But she reveals that she, like the heroine in the novel that inspired Sigrid to come to Norway, is also engaged.

“This is exactly like when Kristen Laurens can’t marry Erilund because she’s engaged to Syran. But she breaks up with him and marries Erilund anyway in spite of her father,” Kasper says, excitedly recounting the plot line of the famous novel.

“Not exactly,” replies Ingeborg sadly, explaining that she has read the book, and has learned from the moral of the story and won’t make the same mistake.

Though her husband is killed randomly by a falling cow soon after, a series of post-man errors and goat incidents prevent the news from reaching Kasper and much time passes before the two are brought back together again and their romance is once again sparked – this time by the death of the writer, whose funeral they both attend, though perhaps unwittingly.

“You must go to the funeral,” Ingeborg’s friend tells her.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because she was your relative.”
“But she’s Danish!”
“When a relative dies, you go to the funeral, whether she’s Danish or not,” she is told matter-of-factly – a joke my Norwegian friend would appreciate.

And, thus Kasper and Ingeborg begin their happily-ever-after life together in true Hans Christian Andersen style.

Later, in the final coincidence of the film, the same friend who urged Ingeborg to attend the funeral, while travelling to visit the couple in Copenhagen, meets a young poet on the train who is on his way to Copenhagen to gain inspiration from Sigrid, who has become quite a successful writer.

So, like any good old-fashioned story, we have some clever twists along the way that eventually lead to a happy ending, and an intriguing exploration of coincidence and fate and how they affect our lives.

“Had it not been for the Danish poet and Sigrid Undset, a rainy summer in Norway, a slippery barn plank, a careless mailman, a hungry goat, a broken thumb and a crowded train, my parents might never have met at all. And who knows, I might still be a little seed floating around in the sky, waiting for someone to come and get me.”

This film won the Academy Award for best animated short and is definitely worth paying $2 at the NFB to go see. I recommend it!