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| Written by The Curmudgeon |
Some time during 2018 I stumbled over a hidden treasure. You know, one of those movies or series which you never asked for, were previously unaware of, but ends up surprising you with its quality. And what a treasure Hilda (2018) turned out to be.
A delightful British-Canadian animation of only 13 episodes, Hilda captivated me from the start. For a while now, I've contemplated writing something a little more essayistic and detailed about the show, but something about it is elusive. Words escape me whenever I try to sell Hilda to my peers. The closest I can come to expressing my love of the show is to simply say that it just feels good to watch.
But what is it specifically that makes it so?
That, friends, is exactly what I'm here to talk about. Or at least, I'm gonna try my bloody best.
Hilda is about a young girl - Hilda, if that wasn't already obvious - and the adventures/misadventures she begets with her two friends, David and Frida. Their day-to-day deeds are interwoven with the odd fantasy element - giants, trolls, demigods - which give the show a sort of modern-day fairy tale quality.
But giants and trolls are just any other day for Hilda, as much a part of the quotidian as checking your postbox or lounging on the sofa on a rainy Sunday with a mug of hot soup. Perhaps this marriage of the fantastical and the quotidian is part of Hilda's ability to instil such an idiosyncratic feeling of goodness - it takes the world of dreams and brings it into our own.
The animation is rendered in a soothing, autumnal, pastel colour palette, which gives its visual style a unique softness that'll have you sinking into its flat pools of hue right from the offset. Hilda's world and its inhabitants are drawn with a gentle curvature that's like cotton for the eyes. The synth score caresses the eardrums like waves to a shore.
But I think a large part of Hilda's feel-good quality can be attributed to the titular character herself. She's written with an infectious, adventurous charm that carries with it all the symptoms of childhood whimsy. There is no mountain too high, no forest too deep for Hilda. She meets every challenge and every caper with the same outgoing positivity, but with a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails attitude that keeps her from become saccharine or annoying. And as far as Hilda's contagious personality is concerned, no one is out of reach. From her misanthropic teacher to some of the more antagonistic presences in the story, Hilda's distinctive blend of kindness and valiance is impossible to ignore.
And many of these peripheral characters are highly memorable in their own right. They're all painted with the same creative brush as the rest of the show, and display distinguishing quirks that keep the world of Hilda feeling alive and populated. Hilda's kindly-but-incompetent friend David, for instance - he's cowardly, he's got a big heart, and he's always got a bug on him for some ungodly reason. A favourite of mine is the unnamed librarian who always seems to know too much about the things she shouldn't.
And what more could you possibly want than to relax into a picturesque world with great company, great adventure, and a protagonist who embodies the childlike wonder and intrepidness which most of us have lost somewhere in the jaded abyss of adulthood?
But giants and trolls are just any other day for Hilda, as much a part of the quotidian as checking your postbox or lounging on the sofa on a rainy Sunday with a mug of hot soup. Perhaps this marriage of the fantastical and the quotidian is part of Hilda's ability to instil such an idiosyncratic feeling of goodness - it takes the world of dreams and brings it into our own.
The animation is rendered in a soothing, autumnal, pastel colour palette, which gives its visual style a unique softness that'll have you sinking into its flat pools of hue right from the offset. Hilda's world and its inhabitants are drawn with a gentle curvature that's like cotton for the eyes. The synth score caresses the eardrums like waves to a shore.
But I think a large part of Hilda's feel-good quality can be attributed to the titular character herself. She's written with an infectious, adventurous charm that carries with it all the symptoms of childhood whimsy. There is no mountain too high, no forest too deep for Hilda. She meets every challenge and every caper with the same outgoing positivity, but with a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails attitude that keeps her from become saccharine or annoying. And as far as Hilda's contagious personality is concerned, no one is out of reach. From her misanthropic teacher to some of the more antagonistic presences in the story, Hilda's distinctive blend of kindness and valiance is impossible to ignore.
And many of these peripheral characters are highly memorable in their own right. They're all painted with the same creative brush as the rest of the show, and display distinguishing quirks that keep the world of Hilda feeling alive and populated. Hilda's kindly-but-incompetent friend David, for instance - he's cowardly, he's got a big heart, and he's always got a bug on him for some ungodly reason. A favourite of mine is the unnamed librarian who always seems to know too much about the things she shouldn't.
And what more could you possibly want than to relax into a picturesque world with great company, great adventure, and a protagonist who embodies the childlike wonder and intrepidness which most of us have lost somewhere in the jaded abyss of adulthood?
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