Customer Reviews

Harvie Krumpet

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I wasn't sure what to expect from this DVD, but only knew it was Australian and had recieved some good reviews here. I was pleasently surprised to experience a series of claymation stories which were truly unique. Mr. Elliot is a talented artist with a fresh perspective on storytelling. Most of the material included here is (or appears to be) based on Elliot's actual family and experiences growning up in Melbourne. The stories are often subtle in their humour and message, but evoke strong laughs and somber contemplation. These stories are quirky yet very human. My only complaint is that I was left wanting more. The price seems a bit steep for the amount of content.

In one of Adam Elliot's shorts accompanying Harvie, a character says that life can only be understood looking backward but has to be lived forward. Harvie Krumpet is a film that lives forward and is quiet, funny, heartbreaking, exhilarating and all from minimal movement and maximum writing. Elliot is a writer who poetically puts stories together that are so close to the bone but so eccentric that one really doesn;t know what to feel while watching it. The end is always something that makes you want to sit and think for a while before speaking. His characters evoke Beckett in the 21st century with a wit and wryness that is Australia. Wonderful stuff that will stay with you for a long long time.

This film deservedly won the Academy Award in 2004 for Best Animated Short. It's a claymation tale of Mr. Harvie Krumpet (nee Harvek Milos Krumpetzki) who emigrates from his native Poland after Hitler's invasion and heads down under to Australia. Harvie has many unfortunate mishaps (as do his family members) but these are often darkly humorous and even touching at times. He gains insights into life and through his perseverance manages to find happiness here and there. Is he a modern Job, refusing to let life's cruelty get him down? Or is he a claymation Ziggy, who allows us to laugh at life's misfortunes? Either way this film is a genuinely creative, funny and even moving film. Buy the DVD and you also get Adam Eliot's other 3 claymation shorts "Brother," "Cousin," and "Uncle."

This DVD is hilarious in that great Aussie way. When life gives you lemons make lemonade.Extraordinary disaster can be met with "good on ya,mate" I dont see a point to over- analyzing.It is just uproarously funny!

Harvie Krumpet is a little clay figure who shows us how life is full of ups and downs.
My family was recently spending time together (we had just lost an immediate, younger family member). We had heard that Harvie Krumpet is a funny animated story, so we decided to watch it. Though a dark comedy (not meant for young children) and not politically correct by today's standards, we were reminded of times gone by. I'm quite a religious person, and I was not offended by the local Church's visit to the aged-persons' home. In my opinion, it was more a spoof on naive people trying to give a "quick fix" solution to life's problems. We certainly related to Harvie's experiences. We felt like crying, we felt like laughing, and we knew that our down time would brighten up by "seizing the day".

This short animated film is not for Kids. This is a movie for an adult attitude. It's a great story, sad and a bit dark, but inspiring. If you're a fan of clay-mation, this is the movie for you. And the bonus features that are included are very good too. Definitely worth having in your DVD collection.

This winner of Best Animated Short at the 2003 Acadamy Awards is the story of Harvie Krumpet, an unlucky but optimistic chump who moves through a life populated with a series of hysterical characters. With a visual style similar to the Wallace and Grommit shorts, but with a more serious undercurrent to the humor, Harvie Krumpet proves to be surprisingly moving by its end. The price is a lot to pay for a single short, but the quality of the product is unquestionably great.

Claymation as its finest. Loved this short and all the others on the DVD.

This movie was completely awesome, everything about it. I was genuinely touched by this movie, and as an animation aficionnado, this movie was brilliant as well. I have tried claymation before and have failed miserably, only ending up with maybe a 10-second fight scene, but this is the absolute greatest thing done with clay in the entire history of foreverness. If you need laughs and inspriation, Harvie Krumpet will more than suffice. 5 stars!!!!!

I can't stop crying, that was funny and beautiful. One up on Aardman Animation. An exceedingly moving and hilarious tale of man's constant tribulations from birth to senility. Fortified by his ever growing book of "fakts" and his gumption, Harvie learns to find joie de vivre, no matter what circumstances come his way, however annoying, disconcerting, depressing they appear. God, I'm still crying ...