Since it was
first published in 1845, Hans Christian
Andersen’s tragic tale “The Little Match Girl” (Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne) has been adapted into a wide
variety of media from theatre to manga. Director
Kazuhiko Watanabe and
screenwriter/producer Matsue Jinbo’s
adaptation, The Little Match Girl (マッチ売りの少女 / Machi Uri
no Shōjo, 1967), was Gakken Film Company’s latest in a series of puppet
adaptations of international fairy tales.
Since 1958, they had already adapted many Japanese folk tales, as well
as several by the Grimm brothers and Aesop.
In 1970, they would go on to adapt another popular Andersen tale “The
Ugly Duckling” (Den grimme ælling) – The Ugly Duckling (みにくいあひるの子/
Minikui Ahiru no Ko).
Plot
The
adaptation is quite faithful to the original story. It begins with the little girl asleep in her
bed in a cold room on New Year’s Eve, with the wind blustering in through a
broken window. She looks to a portrait
of her late grandmother for comfort. Her
father, depicted only by his shoes and his stern voice, tells her to get up and get to work, warning that
she should not come home if she hasn’t sold any matches. The streets are busy with people shopping for
Christmas. One woman notices the girl
and is about to buy matches, only to be distracted by a friend. A kindly grandmother with her impatient
grandson trigger the little girl to recall her own grandmother.
The tragedy
of the little girl’s situation is emphasized by a scene contrasting her life
with those of children playing in the snow.
The girl passes forlornly by the park as the children laugh and throw
snowballs at each other. The original
author of this tale gets a nod in this scene as the park features a bust that
looks very much like Hans Christian Andersen himself. In a dramatic sequence the girl almost gets
run over by a horse-drawn carriage, causing her to lose her shoes (a dog takes
off with one of them) and scattering her matchsticks on the ground.
Night falls, and the girl’s luck does not improve. She wanders the city streets a lonely figure peering in at the warm interiors as doors and curtains are closed in her face. She shivers under a streetlight, recalling her father’s words telling her not to bother coming home empty handed. She curls up shivering on a step and lights a match. In the match’s light she sees a vision of a warm hearth. The match blows out so she lights another and sees a vision of a Christmas feast. A third match brings up a vision of a Christmas tree covered in candles. The candles transform into stars and she sees a shooting star. In a terrible premonition of the girl’s fate, she recalls that her grandmother used to say that a shooting star means that a soul is travelling to heaven. The match girl lights her remaining matches in the desperate hope of seeing her grandmother again. The sequence ends with the girl embracing her grandmother.
The next day, the townspeople wake to a lovely winter’s day, bright with sunshine. The promise of the day is blighted by a gathering crowd around the girl’s body. They react with shock and pity, and the film does not shy away (as many adaptations do) from showing the girl lying still on the ground.
Review
The elaborate sets and costume design for this puppet animation are simply wonderful. Great care has been taken to recreate a 19th century European city. The attention to detail can be seen in particular in the scene when the girl walls through the city as night falls. A whole city street was built including lit interiors with moving puppets in each of the windows or open doorways. The camera moves through the city at ground level following the girl in a very complicated sequence.
Night falls, and the girl’s luck does not improve. She wanders the city streets a lonely figure peering in at the warm interiors as doors and curtains are closed in her face. She shivers under a streetlight, recalling her father’s words telling her not to bother coming home empty handed. She curls up shivering on a step and lights a match. In the match’s light she sees a vision of a warm hearth. The match blows out so she lights another and sees a vision of a Christmas feast. A third match brings up a vision of a Christmas tree covered in candles. The candles transform into stars and she sees a shooting star. In a terrible premonition of the girl’s fate, she recalls that her grandmother used to say that a shooting star means that a soul is travelling to heaven. The match girl lights her remaining matches in the desperate hope of seeing her grandmother again. The sequence ends with the girl embracing her grandmother.
The next day, the townspeople wake to a lovely winter’s day, bright with sunshine. The promise of the day is blighted by a gathering crowd around the girl’s body. They react with shock and pity, and the film does not shy away (as many adaptations do) from showing the girl lying still on the ground.
Review
The elaborate sets and costume design for this puppet animation are simply wonderful. Great care has been taken to recreate a 19th century European city. The attention to detail can be seen in particular in the scene when the girl walls through the city as night falls. A whole city street was built including lit interiors with moving puppets in each of the windows or open doorways. The camera moves through the city at ground level following the girl in a very complicated sequence.
In fact, no
expense seems to have been spared as each scene appears to use a new set. The most
brilliant sequence technically is the scene when the girl almost gets run over
by a horse-drawn carriage. This is shot
from the perspective of the girl, with the horses running straight at the
camera. Compared to the earliest Gakken puppet
animations, this sequence shows to what a high standard the level of puppet
animation at Gakken had achieved by the late 1960s. It conveys the heightened drama of the moment
using the same camera shots as a classical Hollywood live action sequence.
The other marker for me of the level of sophistication of the cinematography is the way in which the night sequences are filmed. In particular, the little match girl sitting under the streetlight in a spotlight that seems to emanate from the streetlight itself, followed by a very sophisticated shot of her top lit with snow gently falling.
The icing on the cake is the lyrical score by Hikaru Hayashi (林光, 1931-2012). Hayashi scored over 100 films in his career, including over 30 collaborations with the renowned filmmaker Kaneto Shindō (新藤 兼人, 1912-2012). In fact, before The Little Match Girl, Hayashi had already composed the brilliant soundtracks to Shindō’s The Naked Island (1960), Kuroneko (1961) and Onibaba (1964). He had previously worked with Gakken for the puppet animations Poron Guitar (1959) and Taketori monogarai (1961). For The Little Match Girl, Hayashi took a classical European approach, using strings and woodwind instruments to express the emotional context of the drama.
In Context
The other marker for me of the level of sophistication of the cinematography is the way in which the night sequences are filmed. In particular, the little match girl sitting under the streetlight in a spotlight that seems to emanate from the streetlight itself, followed by a very sophisticated shot of her top lit with snow gently falling.
The icing on the cake is the lyrical score by Hikaru Hayashi (林光, 1931-2012). Hayashi scored over 100 films in his career, including over 30 collaborations with the renowned filmmaker Kaneto Shindō (新藤 兼人, 1912-2012). In fact, before The Little Match Girl, Hayashi had already composed the brilliant soundtracks to Shindō’s The Naked Island (1960), Kuroneko (1961) and Onibaba (1964). He had previously worked with Gakken for the puppet animations Poron Guitar (1959) and Taketori monogarai (1961). For The Little Match Girl, Hayashi took a classical European approach, using strings and woodwind instruments to express the emotional context of the drama.
In Context
Gakken’s
adaptation holds up extremely well in comparison with the three most well-known
animated adaptations of the tale. The
character design is much better than that found in Charles Mintz’s 1937 animated short which was produced as part of
Columbia Pictures’ Color Rhapsodies
series – the studio’s attempt to emulate Disney’s Silly Symphonies. It was
made using a two-strip Technicolor process and puts the emphasis on an extended
dream sequence that suggests the little girl is going to heaven. The colours are kitschy and the little girl’s
features are so exaggerated as to be distracting. It was however nominated for an Oscar in 1937,
but was no match for the Disney classic The
Old Mill (Wilfred Jackson, 1937).
Tōei Dōga
included the story in its 1968 anime The
World of Hans Christian Andersen (アンデルセン物語 / Anderusen Monogatari) directed by Kimio Yabui. It alters the
story by adding more characters and presents a romanticized, melodramatic take
on the story. Although this is a very
good, if schmaltzy, take on the story, I prefer the subtlety and nuance of
Gakken’s version.
The Disney
adaptation The Little Matchgirl (Roger Allers, 2006) – with “Matchgirl”
written oddly as all one word – was originally intended to be included in the
canceled project Fantasia 2006 (aka Fantasia III). Although the music score is beautiful, the
animation does not “dance” to the music as it did in the original Fantasia (1940). It transfers the story from 19th
century Denmark to 19th century Russia, doubtlessly because they
chose to pair the story with the music of Alexander
Borodin. It paints a grey and bleak
picture of the little match girl’s world.
Colour only seeps into the picture when the girl strikes the match and
has visions of an idealized Christmas with her late grandmother. Even more so than the Gakken adaptation, it
allows the visuals to speak for themselves, but it does so in a way that
assumes the audience has some knowledge of the story. The girl’s death is depicted in such a way
that the less keen observer might believe the girl is being rescued at the end.
Legacy
The Little Match Girl was acknowledged with an
award by the Ministry of Education in 1967 as well as an award at the 22nd
Mainichi Film Awards. It also screened at
festivals in Europe winning the Golden Mermaid Award at a festival in
Copenhagen in 1975 to celebrate the centenary of the passing of Hans Christian
Andersen. The film was dubbed in English
and distributed to schools and libraries in the USA by Coronet Instructional
Films in 1968.
Kazuhiko WATANABE 渡辺邦彦
Producer and Screenplay /プロデュース + 脚本
Matsue JINBO 神保まつえ
Production / 製作
Shōji HARA 原正次
Design / 企画
Shigeki ISHIKAWA 石川茂樹
Original Work / 原作
Hans Christian ANDERSEN
ハンス・クリスチャン・アンデルセン
Cinematographer / 撮影
Hiroshi HIRAI 平井寛
Art Design / 美術
Ryō NAKAKAWA 中川涼
Music / 音楽
Hikaru HAYASHI 林光
Voice Actors / 声の出演
Gunichi
UCHIMURA 内村軍一
Hiroshi
SUNAKA 須永宏
Nobuaki
SEKINE 関根信明
Tamae KATŌ 加藤玉枝
Kyōko SATOMI
里見京子
Kazuko
SAKAMOTO 坂本和子
Sachiko IJMA
伊島幸子
Noriko SHINDŌ
新道乃里子
Keiko IIDA 飯田桂子
2016 Cathy Munroe Hotes
