This is an imaginative and beautifully shot film. A bird watcher, Warre (Huub Stapel), finds a little living creature in the grass under a tree and no adult bird around to claim her. But this little thing is a bird person with the body and head of a baby, though she is small enough to fit in a palm, and wings instead of arms. The little special-effects creature is brought home by the bird watcher to his wife, Tine (Joke Tjalsma), who insists this will be their child whom she will raise. Eep (because that'd what she says) or Birdie (because that's a girl's name that aptly describes her) grows to childhood in short order. This teeny, hirdlike child has difficulties speaking as if her mind can only form bird sounds, and starts feeling her natural instinct to fly which she finds irresistible. The adventure through the Dutch countryside begins when Warre and Tine decide to follow Eep and bring her back once she has flown the coop. Along the way, we meet various colorful and sympathetic characters who want to help save Eep from the North Sea she must cross if she is to follow the migration south to warmer climes for the winter. (I have a problem here -- the North Sea is north of the Netherlands, not south. She's flying in the wrong direction!)
Here's the amazing thing. There are no special effects used for this tiny bird child -- except her feathered arms and her flying among birds in the sky. The part is played by Kenadie Jourdin-Bromley who has primordial dwarfism, suffered by less than 100 people in the world. Born at 2 1/2 lbs and not expected to live more than a few days, Kenadie is now 7 1/2 years old and an international movie star. Ethereal is an understatement -- not just because of her size, but, if I may use a tired and nebulous word, her aura.. She is called by many a little angel and her effect on people cannot be denied. Now her legacy not only includes a documentary about her shown on cable and PBS stations, but also this wonderful children's film. Hopefully, we'll see more of her in films in the future. She truly is magical as well as beautiful and a great, if awkward, flyer.
Eep! (Holland)
Director / Writer: Mieke de Jong
from the book by Iep! by
Cast: Huub Stapel. Joke Tjalsma, Diederik Ebbinge, Kenadie Jourdin-Bromley, Madelief Vermeulen, Ties Dekker
Time:80 min.
Playing in the Mill Valley Film Festival on October 16, 10:30 am, Sequoia
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