Eep!

Iep! Follows the story of a childless bird watcher, Warre, and his wife, Tine. One day whilst Warre is out bird watching he hears an unusual noise. Following the sound he discovers Viegeltje, a baby no bigger than his hand. She looks almost human, except that she has wings, instead of arms. With no sign of Viegeltje's parents, Warre takes her home, where Tine's maternal instincts immediately kick in. The couple decide to keep the baby and raise her as a little girl, hiding her true identity from friends and local villagers.

Some years later when Viegeltje is grown, her affinity for birds is still clear. The only vowel sound she can make is "e", she eats insects, and flies around the kitchen. When she sees a flock of birds flying south for the winter, she flies away to join them.

When Warre and Tine discover she's gone, they begin a cross country pursuit that will take them and the people they meet along the way on a journey which will change them all in unexpected ways.

Eep! Is at times serious, dealing with issues of family, loss and loneliness. Mostly however it is a light hearted film with lots of comic moments. It's perfect for children, who will love cute Viegelte, the thought of being able to fly and the adventure story. The film will also appeal to adults who will appreciate the situation's absurdity more than children will.

The characters are very well portrayed, particularly the elderly couple, who make the situation feel real despite the absurdity. The children in the film are also wonderful, sweet and innocent.

Iep! Is suitable for all the family, it hasn't been widely distributed but has been screened at several film festivals including Leeds Young People's Film Festival and Lancaster Children's Film Festival. If you get the chance, it is well worth a watch.

I can see how this story works very well as a children's book. But as a film I did not like it very much.

The plot has too many loose ends. For example, after the elderly couple have found the girl, they put her in a pram and take her for a walk. Many villagers look in awe at the beautiful baby. No one wonders how they have got her.

After the girl has flown away and the couple go after her, the journey starts and they encounter many absurd situations. Too absurd to take the story seriously, but too absurd to be funny as well.

Some serious and engaging story lines, such as a girl who is neglected by her hard working father, are suddenly cut off without a real resolution.

The couple acts too odd to be believable. As they go after their flown away girl, i did not even feel much sympathy for them.

On the positive side, the bird girl herself is very adorable. But not adorable enough to save the movie.

As a whole, I found the movie rather boring. More importantly, my 5 year old son found it boring as well. He did not want to watch the rest of the movie after about 30 minutes, so I watched the end by myself.

SOME One give me subtitle for this movie pls. i want to watch in understandably

It is a shame that this film was marketed as a children's movie, because it has a double layer and is just as enjoyable for grown-ups as for children. The story is quickly told: An elderly couple finds a girl with wings instead of arms. The man, a birdwatcher, insists that it is a bird, but his wife has motherly feelings for the creature and insists it is a child. What it really is, we will never know, but she sure has a lot of bird-like features, and when fall comes, she has an urge to fly south. The growing group people that go on a chase to find her eventually all come to terms with their own issues.

Children will love the cuteness of the little bird girl and the adventurous storyline, but grownups enjoy the fantastic dialogs and the absurdity of the situations, that reminds some of the best Van Warmerdam films (without having the same gloomy atmosphere).

This is the first Dutch film ever where the director had here name taken off the credits (the director is now 'Ellen Smits', Alan Smithee's Dutch sister), because 15 minutes were cut out of the film without the director's permission. I don't know if this was a good decision. Fact is that the whole pace of the movie is rather slow. If some action scenes were cut out, this was a bad decision, but if the deleted scenes were more static and introspective, it may have actually been a good decision. Of course I would love to see the deleted scenes, but unfortunately they are not included in the DVD.