Wnky's Horse (2005)

Every once in a while, I will sit in an endless nothingness, attempting to find a small kernel of an idea of what to write.  I don’t mean creative, fictional writing, though that is a difficult thing to find talent in.  When I watch movies, I sometimes have trouble pulling something out of them that I feel comfortable writing about.  Some kernels pop, but I can’t find the butter to make them delicious.  I’m left thinking that the idea is too repetitive or that I don’t have the knowledge required to properly discuss a topic.  This pseudo-block that I encounter can sometimes lead to good things and sometimes the worst.  What will it be this week?

The movie that had my brain jumbled this week was a 2005 children’s movie from Norway that was titled Winky’s Horse for North American audiences (though I’m sure that the audience in North America was nearly non-existent).  This lackluster children’s tale was about a girl obsessed with getting a horse for Christmas, even though there was nowhere for her to keep the horse.  Surprisingly, I was having trouble trying to figure out what to write about the movie.  I had a few ideas; however, they didn’t feel like the right thing to do with this movie.  And then it hit me like a flyswatter hits a housefly.  I should just write about the movie.  Who cares if I try to only review newer movies so that people will pay attention to those movies?  This is a movie that has a lot of things that I want to point out, so I should point them out.

The first thing that you need to know about Winky’s Horse is that it has some of the worst voiceover narration that has ever been put to film.  I’m sure that it may have been because I was watching an English dubbed version of the movie.  That is the only version of the movie that I could find.  Perhaps the original Norwegian version didn’t have the narration.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that the voice I was hearing was not that of the six year old who was supposed to be narrating.  It sounded like someone older, softening their voice in an attempt to sound six, and not entirely succeeding.  That lack of realism was only half of the problem with the narration.  There was no enthusiasm behind the voice.  It felt like the person speaking didn’t want to say any of what she was saying, or just plain found it boring.  It was abundant throughout Winky’s Horse and only made the experience of watching it feel more drawn out and painful.  That’s all I have to say about the narration.

Adding to the awfulness of the narration is the story of the main character.  I briefly touched upon it by saying that Winky was obsessed with getting a horse.  Now I want to go deeper into the idea and explain what happened before, during, and after the start of the obsession.  The movie begins with Winky and her mother moving to Norway to be with her father who owns a Chinese restaurant there.  She has a hard time making friends at school and ends up befriending a horse she met on the street.  Somehow, while this 6 year old girl was riding around the countryside by herself, she found where the horse lived.  Winky then begins telling everyone that she has her own horse.  One girl at school is interested in the horse and wants to see it.  When Winky takes her to see it, they discover that the horse needs to be put down.  And thus begins Winky’s obsessive desire to find a new horse to be her friend, even though the girl from school is now her friend.  Saint Nicholas gets the brunt of her obsession as she keeps trying to give him her drawing of a horse so that he’ll know what to get her.  It all culminates in Winky stealing Saint Nicholas’s horse, believing that he brought it for her.  The whole movie is about Winky wanting a horse for a friend even though she has a friend that she isn’t paying attention to.

Speaking of Saint Nicholas, the one good thing I can say about Winky’s Horse is that the portrayals of this character are well done.  Well, mostly well done.  His helpers were a little scary, but I’ll get into that in a minute.  There were two different interpretations of the character in the movie.  One was a mall Santa version, who looked believably fake.  There was a little bit of facial stubble showing from under his Santa beard, and he looked like a guy in it for the quick money.  The other portrayal was of a man becoming Saint Nicholas because he cared about the children.  He makes sure that all of the details are just right, and shows interest in each and every child.  The only problem with the portrayal is the helpers that I mentioned before.  They have one of the worst cases of blackface that I have seen put to film this side of Birth of a Nation.  In a modern age where the only semi-acceptable place for people to use blackface is period acting, it seems rather upsetting to see it used so freely in Winky’s Horse.  Maybe that’s my perspective because I live in North America and have grown up surrounded by a history built on racial inequality.  Knowing about injustices against other races has made people in North America (at least, the people I know… I realize the police are making an argument for the other side) more sensitive to blackface than other cultures.  It is probably a culture thing.  I still find it disturbing.

Winky’s Horse was a movie that I had a lot of trouble sitting through.  The painfully awkward, dull narration and the irritatingly self-absorbed story made it hard to be interested in the story in any way whatsoever.  The insanity of seeing the blackface so casually thrown into the movie was rather frightening.  All I really got out of the movie was this post, and I guess I’ll have to be fine with that.  The most lasting impression that the movie will leave with me will probably be the fact that the poster you see at the top of this post has a white girl, when the main character is Chinese.  Talk about bad poster art.  However, the movie apparently did well enough in Norway to warrant a sequel.  Whether or not I watch that sequel can only be told by time.  I don’t think I have a copy of it yet.  Who knows, though?

There are obviously a few notes that I have to give before we head out:

• This movie is from a box set similar to those that included A Car’s Life, Backwoods Bloodbath, Old No.587: The Great Train Robbery, Evil Bong, Evil Bong 2: King Bong, Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned, The Legend of Sorrow Creek, An Ant’s Life, and Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever.
• Other movies with dubbing that I watched included Infra-Man and Dig Your Grave Friend… Sabata is Coming.
• Have you seen Winky’s Horse?  Have you even heard of it?  What do you think of blackface?  I’ve got a comments section.  Feel free to use it.
• The comments section, as well as my Twitter and email (sundaybadmovies@gmail.com) can be used to mention movies that you would like me to watch for future Sunday “Bad” Movie installments.
• Next week, I will be writing a post based on watching the two Transmorphers movies.  That right, Transmorphers, not Transformers.  I’ve seen them before.  I’m ready to see them again.  See you next week.