Selected in many festivals, Ninjababy is a Norwegian film, between humor and drama, with animated sequences giving an original rendering, around the theme of motherhood and pregnancy. To discover at the cinema this Wednesday.
What is it about ?
Astronaut, forest ranger, designer… Rakel, 23, has all the plans in the world, except that of becoming a mother. When she discovers that she is 6 months pregnant following a one-night stand, it’s a disaster! It’s decided: adoption is the only solution. Then appears Ninjababy, an animated character out of his notebook, who will make his life hell…
A UFO from Norway to see in the cinema
Selected at numerous festivals, Ninjababy is the first feature film by Norwegian director Yngvild Sve Flikke to be released in France.
Faced with the film The Children of Others by Rebecca Zlotowski, which is also released this Wednesday, Ninjababy also deals with the question of motherhood, but with a very different prism. The advantage of this little nugget from Norway is its inventiveness, and its way of putting humor and lightness despite the complexity of its subject, and sometimes even its harshness. Ninjababy has the particularity of using animation, which mixes with fiction. Recently, we have seen two other films with female heroines using this process and original mixture, in this case in the films La Page blanche and Everyone loves Jeanne, still showing.
Like The Blank Page, Ninjababy is adapted from a graphic novel, aptly called Fallteknikk was by Norwegian animator, cartoonist and illustrator Inga Sætre.
Pointing out the differences between the graphic novel and the film, the filmmaker explains, in a note of intent, that “the focus is on the relationship between (the heroine) Rakel and her best friend. I started from there, and in agreement with Inga (Sætre, the designer), I reviewed the age, the ambitions, and the social situation of the characters. I could never have made this film without Inga. (…) She did all the animations, she was involved from the beginning of the development, and I’m really grateful to her for that“, underlines the filmmaker.
A mix of fiction and animation
Thanks to this mixture, the film is quite fresh (even if it evolves towards something more dramatic as it goes), with endearing characters, whose concerns touch us.
Filmmaker Yngvild Sve Flikke wanted to show that it’s okay to make mistakes. One of the themes is that of the fear of motherhood, here precisely of young Norwegian women: “We are at a time when getting pregnant before the age of 30 is unusual. The film also deals with taking responsibility, maturity and our ability to overcome all situations. I believe that many women have felt the fear of becoming a mother, even those who had planned it.”, she continues. “And in return there is the feeling of care and love that develops during pregnancy, in different ways. This ambivalence, these contradictory feelings, that’s what I tried to bring out in the film.“
Ninjababy by Yngvild Sve Flikke, with Kristine Kujath Thorp, Arthur Berning, Nader Khademi, is to be discovered at the cinema this Wednesday.