Flåklypa Fever Hits Tromsø on Canada Day!

Today, I'm going to describe a plot from a movie to you, and you're going to tell me what movie I'm talking about. Alright? Here we go.

This bright-eyed guy with a passion for inventing brilliant contraptions harbours a passion for high-speed racing. He discovers that the hopes and dreams of millions are riding on his chances in a big race, and so he resolves to do everything in his power to win. With the help of his friends - both human and otherwise - he puts the finishing touches on a new vehicle design. Just before the race, his arch-nemesis sabotages the vehicle by loosening a dangling engine part.

At the starting line, engine problems stall our hero, and he ends up almost a lap behind his competitors. He finally catches up and, just as he passes the villain, his sabotaged engine acts up on him and he falls behind again.

He struggles with his backup systems and finally overcomes the engine trouble. He blasts past the competition and finds himself once again right behind the saboteur. But evil knows no dignity, and so, with one lap left, his devious counterpart invokes some Dirty Tricks. Of course, our hero prevails, and a crowd of his jubilant friends celebrate the victory together as his home-made vehicle blasts past the finish line.

Now, if you're from North America, you're probably saying to yourself, ''Self, I think he's talking about the Pod Race scene in the movie event of the millenium, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.''

But if you're from Norway, you're probably thinking to yourself (in norsk), ''Why, drag me backwards into my birdhouse! I think he's talking about Ivo Caprino's 1975 stop-motion animation classic, Flåklypa Grand Prix!''

And indeed, I am. You won't find any Jedi in Flåklypa. But you will find Reodor Felgen, a bicycle repairman who lives atop a mountain overlooking his small town with his two friends - energetic, outgoing Solan, and the paranoid and perpetually ill Ludvig. While Solan is apt to curse, ''Drag me backwards into my birdhouse!'' and rush in where angels fear to tread, Ludvig would rather sleep safely against the wall, mumbling ''T-th-the north wind is blowing from all directions today, Solan.''

The vehicle Reodor builds is called Il Tempo Gigante. I stumbled across this brilliant rendering of the car on the internet. It was rendered in Real3D by Karl Ruben Pettersen, a Norwegian artist who lives near Stavanger. Click on the image if you want to view a larger version of the image and read Karl's ''Fun Facts'' about Il Tempo Gigante. Reodor describes to a reporter in the movie how the car's engine uses, among other things, a catheter to facilitate fuel injection.

Now, rumour has it that this film has been translated into sixteen different languages. Alas, we were unable to find a translation here in Tromsø. But we had something even better - an Espen! Espen spent the entire day with his left hand on the VCR Remote Control, his right on the keyboard, and his brain racing faster than Reodor in Il Tempo Gigante. He was particularly challenged by the fact that there isn't a ''throw-away line'' in the entire movie. It is laced with in-jokes and Norwegian cultural references that he wanted us to appreciate.

Espen must have succeeded, because we all came away from the movie feeling tremendously Norwegian. Everything about the movie was Norwegian the same way that everything in Tromsø is Norwegian. All the little things I've been struggling to describe. The feel of the crowd, the clothes the characters wore, the sense of humour. It was all just so... national.

The music in the film has inspired a song that is currently on the top of the disco charts here: Multicyde's ''Not for the Dough.'' The harmonica in Multicyde's song is lifted straight off the Flåklypa soundtrack. Monty Python, incidentally, also unceremoniously lifted part of the Flåklypa soundtrack and used it in the ''It's Your Turn To Be A Great Actor'' audio gag.

Find this movie, and watch it. As I wrote to my friend Craig back home, I'm almost afraid to admit that I was more into the Flåklypa race than I was into the Star Wars Pod Race. I don't know how much higher praise I can heap on this movie.

If you're having trouble finding it, it is apparently also known as Bjergköping Grand Prix, Hintertupfinger Grand Prix and Pinchcliffe Grand Prix. It's been around since 1975, which makes it even more incredible: this movie predates Star Wars and even the Muppet Show.

For Canada Day, I had made everyone as ''Canadian'' a meal as I could design: Mom's bagels! (Thanks Mom!!) Home-baked bagels stacked to the teeth with ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, dijon mustard and a dash of mayo. Edmondas, Liz-Iren, a freshly-back-in-Tromsø Kjersti, a rather ill Ludvig... er, Kenneth, Karl, Frodo, Nadia, translator Espen and little ol' me piled into our pizza-box-decorated kitchen (''It's ugly,'' said Kjersti simply, and what defense could I mount when our wall is covered in pizza boxes?).

I have to get back to work! I have racing cars of my own to design.