Moomin is one of Finland's national treasures.
As all nordic people know, these lovable white creatures were created by Swede-Finn Tove Jansson and have spawned cartoons, books, animations and endless amounts of merchandise of every kind imaginable.
Björk, one of Iceland's national treasures, has now written a new song called "The Comet Song" with her frequent collaborator Sjón, who has worked with her on e.g. "Bachelorette" and "Wanderlust" for the new Finnish movie, Moomins and the Comet Chase.
I myself was a huuge Moomin fan as a kid, so I can't say I wouldn't be a bit thrilled about this. I remember having all the episodes of Japanese made cartoony animation series, except the first one Taikurin hattu, (‘The Magician's Hat’), on seven video tapes and watching them constantly. The slow pace and the relaxed atmosphere had a soothening effect that was truely unsurpassable, on times when every other kids' cartoon seemed to be noisy and violent. But of course there are differing opinions to this, mostly because the Moomins were originally a bit anarchic and oriented more to adult tastes than just kids.
The new film is done by Swede-Finn film studio Filmkompaniet. The movies they make are stop-motion animations, and I myself find them a bit creepy, considering how their last year's Muumi ja vaarallinen juhannus, ('Moomin and Midsummer Madness') looks like. But we'll see how the new one turns out. It's said to be coming to cinemas in August/September 2010.
Here's a clip from the last Moomin flick: