Resan till Melonia

Alternative title: Journey to Melonia: Fantasies of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, The
Synopsis: Animated feature film inspired by The Tempest, directed and animated by Per Ahlin. A children’s film about the evils of industrial capitalism with a strong ecological message. The tropical paradise island Melonia is inhabited by the wizard Prospero, his daughter Miranda, and all their friends: Ariel is an albatross; Caliban, a monster whose limbs and face are fruit and vegetables, is the wizard’s reluctant slave; William is a poetry-spouting dog with a portrait of Shakespeare above his bed. A ship bound for Melonia from Plutonia, a neighbouring industrialised island, sinks during a storm conjured by Prospero. Washed ashore on three separate parts of Melonia are three pairings: Ferdinand, a stowaway, aged, like Miranda, about 11, and the ship’s timid Boatswain are taken in by Prospero; peg-legged Captain Christmas Tree and the ship’s fabulously tall and buxom female cook wander the island; the short, fat Slagg and tall, thin Slug, are the evil rulers of Plutonia. They staff its hellish munitions factory with enslaved children (Ferdinand has escaped from the factory), who are watched over by robots. Their plan is to take over Melonia and make it just as ugly as their own island.
Slagg and Slug see Caliban accidentally spill a few drops of Prospero’s magic elixir, which causes a huge increase in size in whatever it touches. Realising how this ‘power soup’ might enable them to rule the world, they kidnap Caliban and the elixir and return to Plutonia on a ‘ship’ improvised from a wooden crate.
Prospero and the others give chase. On Plutonia, Miranda rescues the remaining boy slaves from the factory by transforming them temporarily into birds, and they take refuge in an abandoned theatre nearby. Here, William has discovered a manuscript of The Tempest and begins to stage it, using Prospero and the others as his cast. Meanwhile, the imprisoned Caliban has drunk the elixir and, now a giant, floods the factory and the rest of the island - drowning Slug and Slagg. Caliban rescues all those in the theatre from the rising waters. Prospero renounces his borrowed powers and leads everyone back to his home island, freeing Caliban and Ariel and promising that ‘none shall rule’ on Melonia.
Language: Swedish
Country: Norway; Sweden
Medium: Film; Television
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Year of release: 1989
Duration: 101 mins

Credits

Director

Per Ahlin

Producer

Katinka Farago; Klas Olofsson

Cinematographer

Pelle Svensson; Piotr Joworski

Screenplay

Karl Rasmusson; Per Ahlin

Music

Bjorn Isfalt

Production Design

Per Ahlin

Cast

Allan Edwall	Prospero
Robyn Carlsson	Miranda
Tomas von Bromssen	Ariel
Ernst Gunther	Caliban
Olle Sarri	Ferdinand
Hans Alfredson	Slagg (Antonio)
Jan Blomberg	Slug (Sebastian)