Strings

Directed By: Anders Rønnow Klarlund
Written By: Naja Marie Aidt, Anders Rønnow Klarlund
Produced By: Aage Aaberge, Niels Bald, Kate Barry, Jan Blomgren, Mike Downey, Rumle Hammerich, Axel Helgeland, Peter Aalbæk Jensen, Sam Lavender, Zorana Piggott, Sam Taylor, Ole Wendorff-Østergaard
Starring: James McAvoy: Hal (English) Jens Jacob Tychsen: Hal (Danish) Jonas Karlsson: Hal (Swedish) Catherine McCormack: Zita (English) Iben Hjejle: Zita (Danish) Melinda Kinnaman: Zita (Swedish) Julian Glover: Kahro (English) Henning Moritzen: Kahro (Danish) Gösta Bredefeldt: Kahro (Swedish)
Production: Aage Aaberge, Niels Bald, Kate Barry, Jan Blomgren, Mike Downey, Rumle Hammerich, Axel Helgeland, Peter Aalbæk Jensen, Sam Lavender, Zorana Piggott, Sam Taylor, Ole Wendorff-Østergaard
Release Date: 2004

Plot: The World of Strings,\; The fact that the characters are played by marionettes is incorporated into the film's fictional universe. That is, the characters are literally marionettes. Wide shots of the countryside reveal millions of strings stretching endlessly into the sky, each one representing an individual on earth. Nobody knows how far the strings reach or who is controlling them. As far as the characters know, the strings are controlled by a higher power.

When a string attached to a moveable limb is severed, it is analogous to amputation; the individual loses the ability to use that body part. Once a string is cut nothing can repair it or bring back to life whatever it was attached to. If the "head string" is cut, it results in permanent death.

Since nothing can reanimate a body part after its string is cut, repairs to injured individuals must be made using healthy, unsevered parts. An unfortunate collection of poor people and prisoners is kept as a donor class. When a person of royalty or other social importance loses a body part, another is involuntarily taken from a prisoner and replaced with its string intact.

Prisons are designed around the fact that the strings reach up endlessly into the sky. Rather than cells, the prisoners are confined underneath huge horizontal grids, and the range of mobility allowed by their strings is limited by small square openings in the grid through which the strings are inserted and locked within.

Review: Strings is a fascinating film on many levels. The storyline is not new in itself. The film starts with an aging king who has decided it was all too much and chooses suicide. He leaves a heart felt message for his son in the hope of that his son will step up and take the crown and be the man. There is the evil brother, similar to Hamlet, who finds the note first and designs a way to get rid of the son and heir to the throne, combat a rebellious faction within the kingdom while securing the throne for himself.

The son finds himself an outcast from his Mother and family and the royal court. He soon journeys through many encounters. Learning some startling truths and of course falling in along the way. Nothing really new as far as story telling goes. It has been compared to a Grimms fairy tale A sort of Brother Grimm's Snow White meets Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast. Plenty of drama and mayhem with a splattering of sword play and romance.

What makes the film so intriguing, and something I didn't see much mention in other reviews, was the animation by strings. The strings were more than just the obvious movement of the marionettes. They were the very life force and viability of the characters. This is portrayed by the birth of a new child when the Mother attaches her strings to the child to give it life. It is also portrayed when prisoners are held captive in a open cell where the ceiling constricted the movement of the stirrings. Thus stopping them from escaping. And it is shown to be the very vulnerable aspect of each person who would die if their strings were cut. The attached strings to each character seems to allude to a cosmic connection to a greater Puppet Master. Possibly God?

SPOILER ALERT: There is an odd yet poignant ending that can be easily missed. A bird who is morning the death of one of the characters loses it's strings and flies away. Something to ruminate about.

M J Flack