Ganeida's Knots

I've tracked down many things in my time - suitcases, dogs, the occasional husband - but you're the first clients who've ever mislaid their children. ~The Thief Lord






Buying dvds on the island is dodgy at best.  They tend to be really old, really bad & really cheap ~ but it's been really wet so I flicked through them & came away with The Thief Lord.  I'd never heard of it before.  Never read the book.  Knew nothing at all about it.  I merely had a really bored child who was fed up with reading, had composer's block & was fed up with the long slow drizzle falling from the sky.

And here is what I learnt.  Sometimes you get lucky.  This is one excellent little movie.  Basic Robin Hood plot consisting of one rich young man bullied by an uncaring father [the Thief Lord of the title], 2 recently orphaned boys & a gaggle of other orphans who hang in an unused movie theatre called the Stella & steal from the rich to support the poor ~ or so they think.  Add in an aunt & uncle chasing the cute orphan, an incompetent detective sent to track the cutie down, a pretty photographer & an old man willing to pay a lot of money for  the theft of a broken wing.  Set the whole thing in picturesque Venice & you have an unusual plot part fantasy, part suspense, part comedy, part tragedy.  And it works!  All the young actors are excellent.  What is more, although to push the plot along some of the adults are wicked the children also find sympathetic adults willing to help as they negotiate the treacherous waters of trust & betrayal.

The Theif Lord began life as a book by German author Corneila Funke, who did the Inkworld books. The movie, a British/German venture, was released in 2006 by Warner Bros & was nominated for the 2006 World Soundtrack Awards.