Tintin and I 2004

A fascinating documentary about Belgian cartoonist George Remi (known as Hergé) and his famous creation, the adventuresome boy reporter Tintin. Journalist Numa Sadoul’s revealing interviews with Hergé from the 70s form the basis for the film’s insights into the secret life of the boy wonder and his elusive creator. Starting life as a strip in a right-wing Catholic newspaper in the 1930s, the crude early Tintin stories were explicit in their anti-Communist and colonialist propaganda, but they quickly became much more sophisticated, and included thinly-veiled criticism of the Third Reich. Once Belgium itself was German-occupied, however, the Tintin stories lost their political bite, becoming mere escapist adventures, running in Le Soir, a paper under Nazi control. After the war Hergé was blacklisted as a sympathiser, but soon found work again in a children’s weekly. His stories took on a more personal edge following the end of his marriage and a near nervous breakdown. Østergaard’s film will fascinate even those unfamiliar with Tintin and his adventures. — MM