sra-lopez12 Although this short was beautiful and magical it was also definitely not for children. I found it in an hour and a half long collaboration of shorts on Netflix. They recommended that my two year old son watch it based on what he'd watched in the past. A lot of those are not appropriate for children under twelve years old, I'd say. I am aware that it was based on the classic, therefore not actually Disney writing, but still, not okay for a two year old. Maybe Netflix is at fault for suggesting something inappropriate. But, it's a solid reminder that not all things Disney umbrella are okay for kids to watch.

MartinHafer THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL is a short film made by Disney. It was originally intended as part of a new Fantasia-style film but the project was canceled--leaving the studio with a completed short film based on the Hans Christian Andersen story. Although I think the original story was set in Denmark (since Andersen lived there), this one is set in Russia and is very faithful to the original story otherwise. A poor and hungry little girl sells matches on the street and ultimately dies due to exposure and malnutrition since it's the middle of winter. While Disney did "clean up" the story just a bit (making the child look reasonably well-fed and clean), the story doesn't pull punches and has the original depressing ending. All the action is set to lovely music and the quality of the animation is as good as you can get with Disney. It's a lovely little film though its gritty subject matter make it tough watching.This film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short for 2007 but lost to THE DANISH POET.

SevenStitches I first saw this film streamed on youtube.com and had no idea that it was a Disney short. Sure it had Disney's beautifully fluid animation (in 2D no doubt, just like old times), but unlike Disney of late, it told a deeply emotional tale with inventive visuals and no compromises in its themes. Its based on the Hans Christian Anderson fable of a small Russian girl selling matchsticks on a harsh winter's evening, when no one seems to care less. Alone and without shelter, she rides out the night lighting her matchsticks for warmth in a street corner, allowing herself to be transported to hospitable, warmer places of fantasy.By the end, i was deeply moved by what i'd seen, but as the credits rolled, i was astonished; directed by Roger Allers; executive produced by Roy E. Disney?! Who would've thought that the company currently responsible for such tat as "The Wild" and "Chicken Little" are still capable of such profound work as this? I thought that this kind of animation only existed in Japan. Apparently, Disney is still alive somewhere under all that commercialism. In a western culture that thrives on bland, generic animated comedies (fot the most part), in short and feature length, seeing this, and from the company that seems to have finally submitted its guard to that culture, is a breath of fresh air (to use a well worn cliché).Get "The Little Mermaid" Platinum DVD release and give it a glimpse, the only place your likely to see this in an acceptable format. This is an improvement from Disney, hands down, not just on their most recent stuff, but from all their modern works. While the majority of the 90's showcased impressive and at times classic examples of Disney's animated division working at their best, no other film from their modern catalogue tackles such real ventures in human desperation and suffering. True, this is mostly due to the source text. But several of Disney's other adaptations of literature containing disturbing and tragic content have all but washed out those elements, so while the result was still universally great entertainment in an innocent way, it definitely missed out on the more emotionally rich possibilities that Japanese animation mines frequently, and Disney itself used to acquire from time to time in their earlier classics (Dumbo and Pinocchio to name a few). Not so here, Disney seems to have acknowledged this revelation from the east. In fact "The Little Matchgirl" is actually comparable to the profoundly depressing Studio Ghibli war time anime, Isao Takahata's "Grave of the Fireflies", in its sophistication, while also remaining fairly inexplicit to appeal to all but the youngest audience. Stuff like this has very rarely found its way into western animation, and pretty much never in the ones released as mainstream features. This may be only a short, but if Disney can somehow stick to this path of much more sophisticated and imaginative movie-making and implant that thinking into their feature output, we may well see their next Golden Age in animation sooner than planned. Fingers crossed.

William Raymer I had heard a lot about this short film called "The Little Matchgirl" in the last few months, like how it was originally created for an aborted "Fantasia" sequel, how it was based on a short story by "Little Mermaid" author Hans Christian Andersen, yadda yadda. But, when I finally got the 2-disc "The Little Mermaid" Platinum Edition DVD on which "Little Matchgirl" is found, I was totally blown away. Roger Allers did a (pardon my language in a comment on a Disney film)damn fine job on this short. I do believe that if nominated for an Oscar, "The Little Matchgirl" will blow all those other shorts out of the water.Just a friendly word of advice, folks: bring a lot of Kleenexs...