When a young, thick-glasses-wearing Norwegian girl refuses to put her cap on before going out to play, her grandfather tells her a sad but funny tale about his experiences as an older adolescent during WWII. Based on a true story, Pjotr Sapegin's wonderful claymation Through My Thick Glasses finds the blinking, big-eyed, wordless girl translating into mental images her grandfather's reminiscences about the Nazi Blitzkrieg (which she sees as a kind of large military-weapons-encrusted wheel that simply rolls across the Norwegian countryside flattening all before it) that forced his parents to flee, leaving him in the care of his Aunt Ella. Along with friends Paul and Eric, the narrator decides to flee Norway for England to join the resistance, only Paul spills the itinerary beans to his own mother beforehand, and in trade for her son's protection, Paul's mother turns in the other two boys who are promptly jailed. But it turns out Aunt Ella has more than make-ends-meet sewing up her sleeve, and she not only marches into the local Gestapo office and successfully has the boys released, but later reveals that she is in fact a master spy and local member of the resistance (the little girl sees this as the sewing machine transforming into an automatic firearm, which Aunt Ella wields with all the authority of James Cagney in White Heat). In a moving coda, the narrator reveals that after eventually being sent to England and fighting in the war, he could not sleep at night after coming back home, until his Aunt Ella put his military cap on to drown out the noises, presumably both outside and inside his head. An ALA-ALSC 2005 Notable Children's Video, this is a haunting, challenging, and often funny film that re-imagines history through the eyes of a child (although the themes and a very brief urination joke make this more suitable for kids aged 7-up). Highly recommended. Aud: E, J, H, C, P. (R. Pitman)
Through My Thick Glasses
(2003) 13 min. VHS: $129. National Film Board of Canada. PPR. Color cover. Volume 20, Issue 2
Through My Thick Glasses
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