Tove Jansson has long been an iconic author to me. I grew up with Moominvalley and its various inhabitants as near neighbours in my imagination, and although the books are at times quite intense or confusing for children, they have been a fixture on my shelves for many, many years. A few years ago I read her biography, Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words by Boel Westin, and have been keen to see the biopic, Tove, ever since I heard about it a couple of years ago. To my delight, I discovered it's available on BBC iPlayer at the moment, so settled down to watch it (along with the Teen) a couple of nights ago.
Whereas Westin's biography of Tove Jansson was very focussed on her work, and teh tensions between the moomins and her art and other writing, the film is much more focussed on her as a person, and on her relationships. Of course the moomins are there, but they and the rest of her art take second place to the exploration of her personal life.
Tove Jansson was an unconventional character, and her romantic and sexual relationships clearly reflect this. In the film she is protrayed as someone constantly seeking to be loved, and longing for someone to return the love she gives. Her relationships seem to be unbalanced - Atos wanting more than she could give, and Viveca wanting everything while giving nothing back in return. We have never been so desperate for a break-up to happen as with that one, and both found ourselves telling Tove what to do!
Knowing some of the background to the moomin books, it was interesting to see people who became the inspiration for some of the characters; some of them I'd known already, but others were new to me. And some of the moomin art shown was utterly breathtaking in either its detail or its absolute simplicity. They were all familiar images, but somehow had a much stronger impact on me here.
I'm not sure if the film didn't always make the timing of events and the passage of time clear. There were definitely a few clearly indicated years, but there were times that I was a bit confused - although it's a chronological biography, it was sometimes hard for me to tell quite when the events depicted were taking place.
It is clear that Tove struggled to find her way, and felt the need to choose between the moomins, her other writing, and her art. While the Westin biography was explicit about this and discussed the difficulties she faced, the film only hints at this tension. At one point she dismisses the moomins as doodles which got in the way of her work, and she is very reluctant to agree to write the moomin play which Viveca is so keen for - but later she signs the contract to produce weekly moomin comic strips for newspaper publication.
I hadn't realised in advance that the film only covered the earlier part of Tove's life and career, but absolutely loved the way that it used the new beginning of her relationship with Tuulikki as the ending of the film. And it makes sense - it appeas that from the start of this new relationship Tove was far happier and more settled (certainly in comparison to her previous relationships) - and the two of them remained together until Tove's death over forty years later.
Overall I'd give this 9/10: it was illuminating and enjoyable to see a different portrayal of such an interesting and complicated person. The subtitles were also generally very accurate, which I appreciated as I'm always upset and distracted by bad translations! And I'm instructed to add that Teen said. 'Poggers, but they didn't break up. Also 10/10 for the moomin costumes.'
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