AMD 5 - Matthew Simpson

For this AMD, I watched the "Oh wie schön ist panama" movie. I was originally planning on following along with the Janosch book, but it turns out the movie didn't follow the book as closely as I thought it would. In the book, der kleine Bär und der kleine Tiger thought Panama was the land of their dreams. They left their home and went on a journey to find this place. They came across many animals and asked for directions to Panama. After getting some pretty terrible directions, they eventually end up back at their house which has been ravaged by nature. They don't recognize it, but they see the "Panama" sign they put up before they left and assume they have arrived in the land of their dreams. They fix up the place and voilà, home at last. This is, after all, a children's book and therefore must have a message, which is more or less "home is where the heart is."

The movie was slightly different, even the message changed! They started the story on an abandoned island (I think) and eventually made it to Panama. I decided to look up on why exactly it was different, but didn't find a whole lot. I would guess that it was supposed to be more entertaining to children, but where is the underlying meaning?! Even Janosch had a problem with it saying,

"dass der Film mit der ursprünglichen Botschaft seiner Geschichte nicht mehr viel gemeinsam habe."

meaning: The movie does not have alot in common with the original message of the story.

Ok, maybe I was being a little exaggerated saying Janosch had a "problem" with it, but they definitely recognized the difference. That's close enough. I guess.