Klaus
I am, in general, a fan of origin stories. I have seen quite a few when it comes to superhero/villain movies and most of the time I enjoy them. How specific characters came to be is of great interest to me. I spend a lot of time in therapy dissecting my own character and the things that make me the way that I am. This makes me very interested in other characters, both real and fictional, and trying to understand how they became the way they are.
I went into watching Klaus with no expectations. Other than seeing the little picture on Netflix, I knew very little about it. It was animated and it came out in 2019 and based on the title and image of large man with a beard I figured it had something to do with Santa Claus. That was the extent of my knowledge. Usually I like to go into movies knowing at least a little bit of what the plot contains, but sometimes I like to just push play and see what happens.
Beyond here be spoilers. You have been warned.
From beginning to end, Klaus was a lovely surprise. It starts, of all places, at a postal employee training academy. For the first few minutes of the movies I was really confused as to how we were going to jump from post office to a Santa story. But anyway, the story begins by following Jesper, the spoiled son of the Postmaster General. Jesper is pretty much useless; he expects everything for doing nothing. So when his father gets fed up with him, Jesper is sent to be the postman of Smeerensburg, a way distant island far away from all the creature comforts. Jesper is sent to Smeerensburg with the task of delivering 6,000 letters before he is allowed to leave, which may seem like nothing but Jesper soon discovers that as a rule the people of the island eschew the postal service. In addition, the people on the island are engaged in a generations long feud; they are either Krums or Ellingboes and never shall they meet as friends, let alone send letters to each other. Jesper is seemingly stuck without a way out.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was the first scene where we meet the townspeople of Smeerensburg. They are gruff and rude and some downright scary. There are children who aggressively stab carrots into piles of snow. There are people carrying a bundle which can only be a body in need of hiding. The movie is animated so both of those things are funny in addition to being alarming, but it was just so unexpected. There is nothing lovely or charming about the town, it is just an angry and kind of gross (lots of dead fish around) place.
Desperate to get some letters under his belt and egged on by the jokester ferryman, Jesper travels out to the other end of the island where the woodsman, Klaus lives a reclusive life with a shop filled with the toys he built. Jesper runs away terrified when he first meets Klaus, but through a series of lucky events, a little boy in town had done a drawing that Jesper had been carrying and it ends up in Klaus’ hand. The drawing inspires Klaus to deliver one of his handmade toys to the boy, with Jesper’s assistance since he is the postman, of course.
This inspires Jesper to get the other kids around town to start writing letters to Klaus the woodsman, telling him how good they have been and getting them to ask for toys. You can see where this is going - the start of writing letters to Santa.
I don’t want to spoil everything because this is a good movie to check out, but if you’re wondering if Klaus has a bit of darkness in his past? You bet he does. See? Even Santa Claus could benefit from a little therapy…I’m just saying…#therapyforall.
The story is sweet and surprising. Most of the questionable characters get redeemed. The ending is even a bit of a shocker, but Christmas magic still shows up to bring the whole thing to a satisfying end.
If you’re looking for something a little different than they typical Christmas movie, I lay before you Klaus. It is well worth the time for a unique take on the origins of Santa.
