The Little Matchgirl (2006)

A poor young girl has a burning desire to find comfort and happiness in her life. Desperate to keep warm, the girl lights the matches she sells, and envisions a very different life for herself in the fiery flames.

Director:

Roger Allers

Writers:

Hans Christian Andersen (based on an original story by), Roger Allers (story adaptation by)

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 nomination.

Storyline

Amid an indifferent crowd in the snow-capped streets of Moscow, an impoverished and humble little girl struggles to eke out a living by selling matches, in this Roger Allers' adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's original story. Up against a relentless and mighty adversary, the poor seller reluctantly decides to warm herself by using the last of her matches, and, suddenly, clear and bright visions of a happy and carefree life start to envelop her. Look. There's her sweet and silver-haired grandmother. And over there, there's the family's dazzling Christmas tree. Dear God, can the fleeting but beautiful illusion be real in the morning?

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Plot Keywords:

young girl | fairy tale | hans christian andersen | christmas | match | 

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Taglines:

Even in the coldest night, a dream burns on forever.

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Genres:

Animation | Short | Drama | Family | Fantasy

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Certificate:

G

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

None

Release Date:

7 September 2006 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Little Matchgirl

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Feature Animation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

7 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Nominated for Oscar in 2007 in Best Animated Short Film category.

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Connections

Version of The Little Match Girl (1954)

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Soundtracks

String Quartet #2 In D Major: 3rd Movement: Notturno (Andante)
Written by Aleksandr Borodin (as Alexander Borodin)
Performed by Emerson String Quartet
Violin: Philip Setzer
Violin: Eugene Drucker
Viola: Lawrence Dutton
Cello: David Finckel
The Emerson String Quartet appears courtesy of Duetsche Grammophon

User Reviews

A rare glimpse of the post 2000 Disney at their creative best.

I first saw this film streamed on youtube.com and had no idea that it was a Disney short. Sure it had Disney's beautifully fluid animation (in 2D no doubt, just like old times), but unlike Disney of late, it told a deeply emotional tale with inventive visuals and no compromises in its themes. Its based on the Hans Christian Anderson fable of a small Russian girl selling matchsticks on a harsh winter's evening, when no one seems to care less. Alone and without shelter, she rides out the night lighting her matchsticks for warmth in a street corner, allowing herself to be transported to hospitable, warmer places of fantasy.

By the end, i was deeply moved by what i'd seen, but as the credits rolled, i was astonished; directed by Roger Allers; executive produced by Roy E. Disney?! Who would've thought that the company currently responsible for such tat as "The Wild" and "Chicken Little" are still capable of such profound work as this? I thought that this kind of animation only existed in Japan. Apparently, Disney is still alive somewhere under all that commercialism. In a western culture that thrives on bland, generic animated comedies (fot the most part), in short and feature length, seeing this, and from the company that seems to have finally submitted its guard to that culture, is a breath of fresh air (to use a well worn cliché).

Get "The Little Mermaid" Platinum DVD release and give it a glimpse, the only place your likely to see this in an acceptable format. This is an improvement from Disney, hands down, not just on their most recent stuff, but from all their modern works. While the majority of the 90's showcased impressive and at times classic examples of Disney's animated division working at their best, no other film from their modern catalogue tackles such real ventures in human desperation and suffering. True, this is mostly due to the source text. But several of Disney's other adaptations of literature containing disturbing and tragic content have all but washed out those elements, so while the result was still universally great entertainment in an innocent way, it definitely missed out on the more emotionally rich possibilities that Japanese animation mines frequently, and Disney itself used to acquire from time to time in their earlier classics (Dumbo and Pinocchio to name a few). Not so here, Disney seems to have acknowledged this revelation from the east. In fact "The Little Matchgirl" is actually comparable to the profoundly depressing Studio Ghibli war time anime, Isao Takahata's "Grave of the Fireflies", in its sophistication, while also remaining fairly inexplicit to appeal to all but the youngest audience. Stuff like this has very rarely found its way into western animation, and pretty much never in the ones released as mainstream features. This may be only a short, but if Disney can somehow stick to this path of much more sophisticated and imaginative movie-making and implant that thinking into their feature output, we may well see their next Golden Age in animation sooner than planned. Fingers crossed.