Movies - The Little Match Girl

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	Movies - The Little Match Girl

"The Little Match Girl" is a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a young girl who sells matches to provide her family with an income during the cold winter. It was first published in 1848 as part of his fifth volume of Nye Eventyr (New Fairy Tales) as "Den Lille Pige Med Svovlstikkerne" ("The Little Girl with the Matchsticks").

Plot synopsis

One New Year's Eve a poor little girl was out selling matchsticks. She was hungry and freezing, and afraid to go home as she had not sold any matchsticks, and her father would beat her. She tried to warm herself by lighting her matches; in their light she saw a succession of comforts, each disappearing as the matches went out. By the light of the next match she saw her grandmother, the only person who ever loved her. Hoping to keep her grandmother as long as possible, she quickly lit the whole bunch of matches. Her grandmother then lifted her in her arms and they flew up to heaven. The next morning her frozen body was found with a smile upon its lips, and with a burned out bunch of matches.

Adaptations

The Charles Mintz studio adapted "The Little Match Girl", including its grim ending, into a 1937 Color Rhapsodies
animated short, considered among the studio's best films. It was nominated for the 1937 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), losing to Disney's The Old Mill
.

In 1971, Toei Animation Company released an animated film based on Anderson's works, entitled Hansu Kurushitan Anderusan no sekai. The final act of the film includes a faithful version of this story.

In 1985, the film The Little Match Girl was released, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, with Keshia Knight-Pulliam, William Daniels, and John Rhys Davies. Presented as a Christmas story, it tells of a young homeless orphan who brings the gift of love and reconciliation and helps a family reunite.

La Vendedora de rosas was a modern adaption of Anderson's fairy tale in a very realistic almost documentary form, a 1998 film directed by Víctor Gaviria, with Leidy Tabares. Thirteen-year-old Monica makes her living by selling flowers in the streets of Medellín, Colombia.

In 2003, "The Little Match Girl" was adapted into a short story manga by Hans Tseng and was featured in the first volume of Tokyopop's Rising Stars of Manga.

In 2005, an adaptation of "The Little Match Girl" was released by ADV Films in Hello Kitty Animation Theater Vol. 3 (a DVD that presents various Sanrio characters staring in classic children's stories). This version was faithful to the original ending (causing some minor concern about the death of the popular Hello Kitty character who played the little match girl).

The story was also used as a basis for the band Groovelily's 2004 off-Broadway musical Striking 12

The German avant-garde composer Helmut Lachenmann has written an opera based on the story called Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Little Match Girl ]

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