Samson & Sally

Samson & Sally
Directed by Jannik Hastrup
Produced by Ebbe Preisler
Written by Bent Haller
Jannik Hastrup
Li Vilstrup
Starring Jesper Klein
Helle Hertz
Per Pallesen
Bodil Udsen
Poul Thomsen
Kristen Peuliche
Berthe Qvistgaard
Claus Ryskjær
Preben Neergaard
Ole Ernst
Music by Fuzzy
Cinematography Jakob Koch
Production
company
Dansk Tegnefilm
Release dates
12 October 1984 (Denmark)
9 November 1984 (USA)
Running time
60 min. (Denmark)
59 min. (United States)
Country Denmark
Sweden
Language Danish

Samson & Sally (a.k.a. Samson & Sally: The Song of the Whales) is a Danish feature-length animated film made in 1984. It was directed by Jannik Hastrup and based on the novel The Song of the Whales by Danish author Bent Haller. The story is darker than most animated films of the time.

Plot

The film revolves around a young albino male Sperm whale named Samson who strongly believes the legendary tales of Moby Dick. The legends say that Moby Dick was a hero for all whales, and that he will someday return. He meets Sally, a young black-and-white female sperm whale who is orphaned after her pod is slaughtered by whalers. Samson's pod adopts Sally and she befriends Samson even though she does not believe in Moby Dick. Samson and Sally together survive certain dangers, such as killer whales, a massive oil slick, radiation poisoning, and whaling ships, which they refer to as "iron beasts." Eventually Samson and Sally fall in love with each other. Samson's mother is later killed by the whalers, greatly upsetting Samson. Samson decides to leave Sally and his pod to search for Moby Dick and convince him to try to save whales from whalers and the "iron beasts." After nearly dying several times, due to humans causing water pollution, Samson finds Moby Dick in the underwater ruins of Atlantis, only to find that Moby Dick is senile, and too old to even forage for himself. Disappointed, Samson leaves to try and find his pod. After days of searching, he gives up all hope of finding his pod, just before seeing them on the horizon. The film ends with a scene set decades later, with Samson and Sally as adult whales, caring for a single son, whom Samson saves from a killer whale.

Characters

Post-Apocalyptic Setting

In one of the last scenes of the film Samson is swimming through the ruins of Atlantis. Throughout the film the characters refer to this city as "The City That Man Built". As he is leaving his encounter with Moby Dick he passes by The Statue of Liberty and the New York City Skyline both entirely underwater. Although a children's film this seems to indicate that they are living in some post-apocalyptic ocean on Earth. They also have large run ins with radioactive waste and other masses of pollution on huge scales. The film is a warning like all other post-apocalyptic stories. "Mankind is not viscious, mankind is stupid. Someday man will realize what he is doing. By killing everything in the sea he is killing himself. When the sea is dead mankind will die too." -Moby Dick

Availability

Samson & Sally was first released in the United States on VHS by Just for Kids Home Video in 1990. This version has edited opening credits, a scene of a polar bear trying to pull a killed seal onto land and the seagull defecating on a whaler after tying him up removed. This version is also pan-and-scan.

In the United Kingdom, it was released on VHS by independent distributor Parkfield Publishing in 1989. This version is uncut and retains its original aspect ratio but is now extremely rare, possibly due to the low number of copies printed.

In Denmark, the DVD version was released on August 20, 2007. Despite its packaging stating an anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer, Dolby Digital 5.1 Danish audio, and additional Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian subtitles, it contains a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 transfer and Danish-only audio and subtitles for the hearing impaired. There are no extras.

The film has never been released on DVD outside Europe.

External links

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