Bram has discovered the secret of perpetual motion: unfortunately, it is driving his family to distraction. He’s a constant whirl of energy, enthusiasm and ideas. He’s also, fortunately, a pretty sweet kid, which takes the edge off the constant mishaps he gets himself into. He wants to be an inventor when he grows up: meanwhile, he makes do by seeing whether it is possible to clear autumn leaves in the front yard with a vacuum cleaner (what do you think?) and testing whether a hairdryer can rescue his Gameboy from a dunking in the toilet. He keeps a list of his favourite words in a special scrapbook, is looking forward to starting first grade: which will he learn first, he wonders, Chinese or Egyptian letters?
Neither, as it happens. Instead, he’ll learn that the wide-open world is not always as sympathetic and patient as the family unit can be. Fidgety Bram is a short, not always sweet Dutch film about the travails of childhood and conforming. Bram’s bete noir is the unsympathetic Mr Fish, his first grade teacher. Mr Fish believes in order and routine and systems and structures – none of these amongst Bram’s favourite words, sadly. This unfortunately everyday story about a clash of priorities hides an unexpectedly powerful emotional punch, which props it above conventional naughty-but-nice child fare. Bram needs to find a way to stop fidgeting but still remain his irrepressible self. A lot depends upon it, like a happy family life.
Nono too lives largely in an imaginary world too, but one of a somewhat different hue. After his mother’s death when he was one, he was brought up largely by his father, police inspector Frierberg (“the greatest inspector in the world!”). But despite Inspector Freirberg’s not-too-tender ministrations to ground him in the real world, Nono’s head remains stuck in the clouds and the improbable. After ruining his cousin’s Bar Mitzvah, he is dispatched to his Uncle Shmuel – the dreaded child development expert who “wears socks with his sandals!” – for expert intervention. Nono’s Bar Mitzvah is just around the corner. It’s time, father thinks, for him to grow up and become a man.
This adaptation of David Grossman’s The Zig Zag Kid remains true to the original, despite relocation from Israel to Holland and France. Gaby, his father’s long-suffering girlfriend, serves as an effective buffer zone between Nono’s land of dreams and his father’s cold harsh daylight. Still, there is the mystery of what happened to his real mother to unpick. After being bundled onto a train, he receives a secret communication that leads him to the worlds greatest burglar – and his father’s greatest rival – Felix Glick – and a whirlwind adventure. The Zig Zag Kid is a charming romp across a late-60s landscape, similarly trading on values that one doesn’t often find in films for or about children nowadays – autonomy, adventure, innocence, romance and even an occasional pistol fight. Amidst all the excitement, Nono still has a mystery to solve – one much about himself as it is about the world around him.
Fidgety Bram (Brammetje Baas) (2012, 83 mins, Dutch with English subtitles)
Directed by Anna van der Heide, Written by Tamara Bos
Starring Coen van Overdam, Katja Herbers, Tjebbo Gerritsma, Rene Groothof
Nono, the Zigzag Kid (2012, 95 mins, Dutch with English subtitles)
Directed by Vincent Bal, Written by David Grossman (novel), Vincent Bal and Jon Gilbert
Starring Thomas Simon, Fedja van Huet, Jessica Zeylmaker, Burghart Klaussner and Isabella Rossellini
The Tel Aviv International Children’s Film Festival will open on Thursday, July 18,2013, at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque. The full program may be viewed online (mostly in Hebrew), click here.
