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Mio in the Land of Faraway (1987)
Lookback/Review by Markdc
The 1980’s was a golden age for fantasy films. Movies such as Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Willow, and many more like them swept into theaters, transported audiences to exotic lands, and introduced them to heroes who went on wondrous adventures. Although very few of these fantasy movies were smash hits at the box office, some of them, like Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride, were modest commercial successes and garnered critical acclaim while others, such as Ridley Scott’s Legend, bombed with both critics and audiences but later gained cult status. One of the cinematic endeavors from this genre and time period which failed to achieve either of these feats was 1987’s Mio in the Land of Faraway. Adapted from the award-winning children’s fantasy novel Mio, My Son, written by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren (arguably best known for her Pippi Longstocking series), the movie was a joint venture between companies from Norway, Sweden, and Russia—known at that time as the Soviet Union, or U.S.S.R. Filmed in English and later dubbed in the languages of the latter two countries, Mio in the Land of Faraway was directed by Vladimir Grammatikov, who specialized in making movies for young viewers. The budget was around 50 million Swedish kronor and was one of the costliest adaptations of Lindgren’s works. (I have no idea how much this amount would come out to in American dollars, but it sounds like a huge sum, especially for 1987.)
Mio in the Land of Faraway tells the story of Bosse, a lonely orphan boy who lives a thoroughly wretched life with his Uncle Sixten and Aunt Edna in Stockholm, Sweden. Sixten and Edna, who are cruel and neglectful, constantly tell Bosse that his father was a no-good bum and that he’ll probably end up the same way. One night, Bosse decides that he can’t endure his situation anymore, so he runs away from home. While sitting on a park bench, he encounters a genie that takes him to the Land of Faraway. There Bosse meets his biological father, who—contrary to what the boy was always told—is actually a great king; he rules over Faraway and lives in a beautiful castle. The king tells his son, now a prince, that his real name is Mio and showers him with the love and attention he has craved all his life. Mio makes many friends in his new home, but his BFF is Jum-Jum, the son of the royal gardener.
From a whispering well, the new prince learns that an evil knight named Kato—who literally possesses a heart of stone—has kidnapped and enslaved many children, and it’s Mio’s destiny to fight him, as prophecies have foretold for countless millennia. Accompanied by the ever-faithful Jum-Jum, Mio travels to Kato’s castle in the Land Outside. They are captured by Kato’s men and thrown into his dungeon to die of starvation, but with the help of a cape that makes him invisible when he wears it inside-out, Mio escapes and makes his way to Kato’s private chamber, where he battles and kills the evil knight. Afterward, Mio rescues Jum-Jum and the enslaved children, and they return to Faraway. The children are reunited with their parents, and Mio is reunited with his father the king and lives happily ever after—or so he adamantly informs the audience in the voice-over.
When Mio in the Land of Faraway opened in Sweden in the summer of 1987, it grossed nearly $17.8 kronor, making it a financial failure. As if that weren’t bad enough, the movie received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics, who viewed it as uninspired, clichéd, and a poor adaptation of Lindgren’s source novel. On the plus side, Mio in the Land of Faraway won the Cinekid Film Award from the Dutch, and its theme song, titled “Mio My Mio,” proved a smash hit in Sweden. In the years since the release of Mio in the Land of Faraway, the few people who have bothered to evaluate it haven’t been much kinder than the critics were in 1987.
I first saw Mio in the Land of Faraway in elementary school when a teacher showed the American VHS version—which went by the truncated title The Land of Faraway—to my third-grade class, and I was completely enchanted by it. After watching this movie as an adult (and after being exposed to magnificent modern fantasy films such as the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series), I have to say that while Mio in the Land of Faraway will always hold a special place in my childhood memories, objectively speaking, it doesn’t hold up well at all. I first read the book Mio, My Son when I was in my early thirties and loved its fairytale style as well as the ending, in which the reader learns that Bosse’s/Mio’s adventures in Faraway (called Farawayland in the text) are nothing more than a whimsical, imaginary invention that allows him to temporarily escape from his awful existence in Stockholm. The movie version is a barely adequate adaptation of Lindgren’s novel in which the protagonist remains in his idyllic fantasy world rather than return to the real one; Mio in the Land of Faraway is Sigmund Freud’s family romance on steroids.
Despite the movie’s massive budget, the production values are only so-so, and the visual effects are terrible—even by 1980’s standards. With regard to these two areas, other fantasy films from that period, such as Willow and The Neverending Story, don’t hold up very well today, but they look like The Lord of the Rings compared to Mio in the Land of Faraway. The acting in Mio in the Land of Faraway is pretty bad. Among the cast members, Christopher Lee, who plays Kato, was the only one to receive any positive notice from critics, but though I always enjoy watching Lee on the screen, I don’t think he’s much better than anyone else in the movie. Nicholas Pickard, who made his debut as Bosse/Mio, is no standout here, but he does the best he can with the words he’s given. By far the most interesting casting choice here is Christian Bale, who plays Jum-Jum. Bale, like Pickard, made his debut in Mio in the Land of Faraway, and just a few months following its release, he delivered his first lead performance in Steven Spielberg’s World War II drama Empire of the Sun. Unlike the former film, Empire of the Sun allowed Bale to display his considerable acting gifts, and he garnered much critical praise. And, as the reader doubtless knows, Bale would grow up to become a movie star, win an Oscar for his performance in David O. Russell’s The Fighter, and achieve cinematic immortality by playing Bruce Wayne/Batman in Christopher Nolan’s beloved Dark Knight trilogy.
Another problem that I have with Mio in the Land of Faraway isn’t the film’s fault. I’m hardly the first person to see the significant similarities between Mio, My Son and its movie adaptation and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books and their adaptations. (Consider: Mio and Harry are young orphan boys who live with a cruel and neglectful aunt and uncle, both boys leave their ordinary life and enter a magical world in which they learn they’re chosen ones destined to wage battle against powerful, evil men, and both are aided by a close friend and sidekick as well as a cloak that can render them invisible to others.) While I’ve never seen any evidence that either the novel or film version of Mio, My Son was an influence on the creation of Harry Potter, there has never been any doubt in my mind that Rowling was familiar with Lindgren’s book, if not the movie. Because Mio in the Land of Faraway was released a full decade before the publication of the first Harry Potter book, and Lindgren wrote Mio, My Son way back in the 19050’s, any similarities between these two literary and cinematic properties are on Rowling. And yet, when I watched Mio in the Land of Faraway for this retrospective review, I couldn’t help thinking of the Harry Potter films and how much better they were.
I will always cherish Mio in the Land of Faraway because of the effect it had on me as a child, but as an adult, I can only barely recommend it to those seeking a cinematic fantasy adventure or a decent family film. The movie is charming in its own way, and the presence of Lee and Bale may be of interest to fans of these actors, but if you’re looking for a children’s film that possesses a high degree of cinematic quality, then you have many superior options at your disposal. In the final analysis, when it comes to the fantasy genre, I suppose you could do much worse than Mio in the Land of Faraway, but you could also do much better.
Lookback/Review by Markdc
The 1980’s was a golden age for fantasy films. Movies such as Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Willow, and many more like them swept into theaters, transported audiences to exotic lands, and introduced them to heroes who went on wondrous adventures. Although very few of these fantasy movies were smash hits at the box office, some of them, like Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride, were modest commercial successes and garnered critical acclaim while others, such as Ridley Scott’s Legend, bombed with both critics and audiences but later gained cult status. One of the cinematic endeavors from this genre and time period which failed to achieve either of these feats was 1987’s Mio in the Land of Faraway. Adapted from the award-winning children’s fantasy novel Mio, My Son, written by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren (arguably best known for her Pippi Longstocking series), the movie was a joint venture between companies from Norway, Sweden, and Russia—known at that time as the Soviet Union, or U.S.S.R. Filmed in English and later dubbed in the languages of the latter two countries, Mio in the Land of Faraway was directed by Vladimir Grammatikov, who specialized in making movies for young viewers. The budget was around 50 million Swedish kronor and was one of the costliest adaptations of Lindgren’s works. (I have no idea how much this amount would come out to in American dollars, but it sounds like a huge sum, especially for 1987.)
Mio in the Land of Faraway tells the story of Bosse, a lonely orphan boy who lives a thoroughly wretched life with his Uncle Sixten and Aunt Edna in Stockholm, Sweden. Sixten and Edna, who are cruel and neglectful, constantly tell Bosse that his father was a no-good bum and that he’ll probably end up the same way. One night, Bosse decides that he can’t endure his situation anymore, so he runs away from home. While sitting on a park bench, he encounters a genie that takes him to the Land of Faraway. There Bosse meets his biological father, who—contrary to what the boy was always told—is actually a great king; he rules over Faraway and lives in a beautiful castle. The king tells his son, now a prince, that his real name is Mio and showers him with the love and attention he has craved all his life. Mio makes many friends in his new home, but his BFF is Jum-Jum, the son of the royal gardener.
From a whispering well, the new prince learns that an evil knight named Kato—who literally possesses a heart of stone—has kidnapped and enslaved many children, and it’s Mio’s destiny to fight him, as prophecies have foretold for countless millennia. Accompanied by the ever-faithful Jum-Jum, Mio travels to Kato’s castle in the Land Outside. They are captured by Kato’s men and thrown into his dungeon to die of starvation, but with the help of a cape that makes him invisible when he wears it inside-out, Mio escapes and makes his way to Kato’s private chamber, where he battles and kills the evil knight. Afterward, Mio rescues Jum-Jum and the enslaved children, and they return to Faraway. The children are reunited with their parents, and Mio is reunited with his father the king and lives happily ever after—or so he adamantly informs the audience in the voice-over.
When Mio in the Land of Faraway opened in Sweden in the summer of 1987, it grossed nearly $17.8 kronor, making it a financial failure. As if that weren’t bad enough, the movie received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics, who viewed it as uninspired, clichéd, and a poor adaptation of Lindgren’s source novel. On the plus side, Mio in the Land of Faraway won the Cinekid Film Award from the Dutch, and its theme song, titled “Mio My Mio,” proved a smash hit in Sweden. In the years since the release of Mio in the Land of Faraway, the few people who have bothered to evaluate it haven’t been much kinder than the critics were in 1987.
I first saw Mio in the Land of Faraway in elementary school when a teacher showed the American VHS version—which went by the truncated title The Land of Faraway—to my third-grade class, and I was completely enchanted by it. After watching this movie as an adult (and after being exposed to magnificent modern fantasy films such as the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series), I have to say that while Mio in the Land of Faraway will always hold a special place in my childhood memories, objectively speaking, it doesn’t hold up well at all. I first read the book Mio, My Son when I was in my early thirties and loved its fairytale style as well as the ending, in which the reader learns that Bosse’s/Mio’s adventures in Faraway (called Farawayland in the text) are nothing more than a whimsical, imaginary invention that allows him to temporarily escape from his awful existence in Stockholm. The movie version is a barely adequate adaptation of Lindgren’s novel in which the protagonist remains in his idyllic fantasy world rather than return to the real one; Mio in the Land of Faraway is Sigmund Freud’s family romance on steroids.
Despite the movie’s massive budget, the production values are only so-so, and the visual effects are terrible—even by 1980’s standards. With regard to these two areas, other fantasy films from that period, such as Willow and The Neverending Story, don’t hold up very well today, but they look like The Lord of the Rings compared to Mio in the Land of Faraway. The acting in Mio in the Land of Faraway is pretty bad. Among the cast members, Christopher Lee, who plays Kato, was the only one to receive any positive notice from critics, but though I always enjoy watching Lee on the screen, I don’t think he’s much better than anyone else in the movie. Nicholas Pickard, who made his debut as Bosse/Mio, is no standout here, but he does the best he can with the words he’s given. By far the most interesting casting choice here is Christian Bale, who plays Jum-Jum. Bale, like Pickard, made his debut in Mio in the Land of Faraway, and just a few months following its release, he delivered his first lead performance in Steven Spielberg’s World War II drama Empire of the Sun. Unlike the former film, Empire of the Sun allowed Bale to display his considerable acting gifts, and he garnered much critical praise. And, as the reader doubtless knows, Bale would grow up to become a movie star, win an Oscar for his performance in David O. Russell’s The Fighter, and achieve cinematic immortality by playing Bruce Wayne/Batman in Christopher Nolan’s beloved Dark Knight trilogy.
Another problem that I have with Mio in the Land of Faraway isn’t the film’s fault. I’m hardly the first person to see the significant similarities between Mio, My Son and its movie adaptation and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books and their adaptations. (Consider: Mio and Harry are young orphan boys who live with a cruel and neglectful aunt and uncle, both boys leave their ordinary life and enter a magical world in which they learn they’re chosen ones destined to wage battle against powerful, evil men, and both are aided by a close friend and sidekick as well as a cloak that can render them invisible to others.) While I’ve never seen any evidence that either the novel or film version of Mio, My Son was an influence on the creation of Harry Potter, there has never been any doubt in my mind that Rowling was familiar with Lindgren’s book, if not the movie. Because Mio in the Land of Faraway was released a full decade before the publication of the first Harry Potter book, and Lindgren wrote Mio, My Son way back in the 19050’s, any similarities between these two literary and cinematic properties are on Rowling. And yet, when I watched Mio in the Land of Faraway for this retrospective review, I couldn’t help thinking of the Harry Potter films and how much better they were.
I will always cherish Mio in the Land of Faraway because of the effect it had on me as a child, but as an adult, I can only barely recommend it to those seeking a cinematic fantasy adventure or a decent family film. The movie is charming in its own way, and the presence of Lee and Bale may be of interest to fans of these actors, but if you’re looking for a children’s film that possesses a high degree of cinematic quality, then you have many superior options at your disposal. In the final analysis, when it comes to the fantasy genre, I suppose you could do much worse than Mio in the Land of Faraway, but you could also do much better.