Harvie Krumpet

Okay, I’d never heard of Adam Elliot until a couple of weeks back when asked to interview him for DVDnet. I called him up, we chatted for a bit and I was thoroughly impressed with the guy. He’s nice. He’s also very much like the myriad film and animation students I’ve known in my life; slightly odd, possessing an askant view on life and an Oscar winner…

Two nights before this interview a videotape (remember them?) arrived in the post with his films on it; the same films showcased herein on the DVD release. So I sat down and watched them with my partner and we had a laugh and enjoyed them because they’re funny. They’re also warm, honest (sometimes brutally) and genuinely likeable. They contain their moments of unpleasantness but that’s just like life isn’t it?

Harvie is a mystery.

He’s one of those strange fellows you see shuffling down grittier suburban streets mumbling to himself. He chain smokes and wheezes air from an asthma puffer. He has a magnetic head. These aren’t traits you put on your resumé at the dating service.

However, Harvie manages to struggle his way through life, absorbing the bad breaks and reveling in the good. He’s not all bad, after all. He’s a nudist for one, and that earns volumes of respect from me (and the majority of DVDnet staff… hell, the last Thursday of each month is Nude Day here in the office). He raises a great daughter who champions the disabled and he is a great believer in Truth and Fakts.

The film itself details the extraordinary averageness of Harvie’s life. Still, he has moments of above averageness that strike all too frequently and usually for the worse. But yet, in everything, Harvie can remain positive because in all the negativity he absorbs, he manages to find the kernel of the positive. And that far outweighs the piles of detrimental negative growing around him in much the way the landfill grows on his worksite at Spottswood Tip. He gets cancer, but finds a wife. He gets struck by lightning, but has a party trick. He accepts his destiny, but discovers life’s true meaning – and isn’t that what all of us are trying to do?

So Harvie isn’t a loser by any means because he figures out stuff most of us never even consider and that makes him a winner.

And his creator an Oscar winner.

Generally this is a pretty sharp transfer, as you’d expect from a film completed in 2003. There are some occasional moments of film grain in the darker moments, but these are indeed fleeting and barely noticed; certainly not affecting. Flesh tones are bluish and plasticinish in consistency while shadow detail, as is true of the majority of clay animation, is well lit and clearly visible.

Delivered in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, there is no anamorphic enhancement, regardless of what the case says. It’s still a nice clean transfer accomplished well by the Madman folks in their usual quality style.

No troubles here at all. While delivered in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround there isn’t much by way of surround use or subwoofer action. No matter, the voiceover by Mr. Geoffrey Rush is spoken eloquently and with emotion and is the perfect accompaniment to the narrative. The film is just great, but with Rush narrating it truly evolves further and his reading is a real credit to the mournful, yet curiously uplifting, story of Harvie.

Music takes various formats from classical operatic movements to a primary school kids’ choir. Kamahl even lends his vox, but I’ll get to that a bit later. Overall the sound is crystal clear and well balanced with nothing glaring ruining the day.

With the main feature being a short 22 minutes, naturally there must come a little bit more to inspire the consumer to part with their hard-earned and here there’s a bunch filling out the DVD landscape.

Firstly there is the soft-spoken audio commentary from director/creator/Oscar-winner Adam Elliot. He speaks clearly about his experience with the film, the creation of various sets and characters and even the hidden gags sequestered about the set. (Apparently a plasticene testicle finds its way onto the set quite frequently… ). An interesting commentary from a guy who obviously loves his work.

Next come the four previous short films of Elliot’s. These vary in length from one minute to eight and are...

Human Behavioral Case Studies, a short student film deainling two strange folks and their strange habits.

Uncle is a 6:07 piece about Elliot’s uncle (obviously) although he’s actually a composite of some of the stranger uncles of Elliot’s.

Brother tells of the misadventures of Elliot’s brother, naturally, while the last film, Cousin (4:29) is about his cousin and features some autobiography at long last.

They are all fun, if slightly bittersweet, reflections on the people in Elliot’s life and are mostly in black and white, although this is evident only in the plasticene and sets, not in the film stock.

Oh, one last note; while it’s great to have Elliot’s audio commentary on each one, introducing himself each time could probably have been edited out. There’s no real need for it, I gotta say. He’s the only one present.

A storyboard featurette walks us through the finer points of the storyboard to film process with scrolling boards under the finished film and an interesting commentary by Elliot again.

Character Model Shots is a gallery of four characters in Harvie, Ruby, Val and Hamish which are largely full screen top halves with a scrolling option to see the lowers. Nice and clear and easily looked at. Good stuff.

Finally Madman Propaganda sees four trailers for other DVD releases, Roy Hollsdotter Live, Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends, Angry Kid and one of my very favourite films, American Splendor.

And, for those among you who enjoy this sort of thing, there’s a sneaky little Kamahl-flavoured Easter egg hiding itself away. You can find out all about that, if you are so inclined, in our Easter egg wing.

Finally, after a long, looooong time, clay animation is starting to get its day in the sun. It’s been around forever in one form or another, but is starting to get itself some decent recognition. In Adam Elliot’s Harvie Krumpet we get to see that Australia can throw its hat in the ring with the best of them and nothing bad could possibly come from that.

Harvie is all at once a sad film, a bleak film, but also an uplifting and warm film with a heart (no doubt full of holes or murmurs). This is worth seeing to understand what all the fuss is about and who the hell Adam Elliot is anyway. It’s also worth checking out to support a fellow Aussie who kicked the big guys’ arses all over Hollywood.

Harvie rocks.

(DVDnet will be following up the recent exclusive interview with Adam Elliot soon, but for the meantime you can check out the interview link on our main page)