Movie Thoughts: Little Mountain Boy (2015)

 

• Released: October 15, 2015
  
• Directed by: Xavier Koller
• Running time: 1h 40min
• Rating: 3/5

Synopsis

A shepherd boy named Ursli very much loves his pet goat. But when his father loses his merchandise to sell in town, poverty strikes his family he has no choice but to part with the goat, all the while the local school bully picks on him constantly. Together with his friend Seraina, Ursli hopes to find a way to get back his pet and get his family out of poverty.

My Thoughts

Not gonna lie, I mainly watched this because the Dutch version is advertised as being primarily about wolves under the title Sepp de wolvenvriend (Sepp, friend of wolves). The wolf does play a part in this movie, but it's a small role, so if you are going in for the wolves you'll be disappointed. It's more so about the boy and his goat than our lupine friends.

The movie itself is mostly fine though. It wasn't great or amazing but I had a good time watching it. You really just want this poor kid to be cut some slack. His family is impoverished, they're constantly hungry, his mother goes off for a long time to work in the city to make them some money, the bully Roman constantly picks on him and then he also has to give up his beloved pet goat. Oh, and he almost dies and would've died had it not been for his friendship with the wolf. Poor kid.

The acting in this movie was a little hard to judge for me because I watched the Dutch dub (the original version with subtitles not being available in my country), so while I can't really judge the acting of the original actors I gotta say the Dutch dub is a bit mid. Not too bad considering some of our dubs are quite bad, but it could've been better also. They also changed Ursli's name to Sepp for whatever reason in my language.

One thing I do gotta say is a breath of fresh air is the depiction of the wolf in this movie. No, they aren't in it for a lot of time, but their depiction is still positive. When, with the plot being about a shepherd boy who is in charge of the goat flock and the wolf sometimes being tempted to target his animals, it would've been so easily to write off the wolves as monsters. 

But no, the wolf is a very neutral or even helpful character in this. Ursli also has a nice and respectful relationship with them, mostly keeping his distance, but also standing up for his flock when necessary.  It's just wholesome to see and it just makes for a breath of fresh air. Believe me, most media about shepherds or livestock keepers that involves wolves has them as the villains, the savage killers.

So this was overall a nice wholesome movie, not too heavy or anything but at the same time it can still be quite sad. I just wish I got to see the original version, but that just wasn't available for me sadly.