Movie
Description
Oncle Oley, also known as Uncle Ole, is a magical character in the 1968 animated film based on the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. He is the spirit of sleep, a gentle supernatural being whose purpose is to wander through the night and deliver dreams to sleeping people. He is first seen arriving in a town by descending from the sky beneath an open umbrella, a sight witnessed by a small mouse named Keke and three young mice.
His personality is warm, playful, and slightly absent-minded. When he enters the mice's home, he cheerfully uses his magic to clean and redecorate the room, but his enthusiasm gets the better of him and he breaks his own shoes. This accident leads Keke to introduce him to a local shoemaker, who happens to be the father of the young Hans. Through this meeting, Oncle Oley discovers that the boy possesses a remarkable gift for telling stories.
Oncle Oley acts as the catalyst for much of the story's action. When Hans expresses his dream of seeing an opera at the Royal Theater, Oncle Oley gives Hans's father a pair of red Arabian leather shoes as payment for repairing his own footwear, and this gift makes the boy's wish seem within reach. The red shoes, however, become the source of a great disturbance, echoing one of Andersen's most famous tales. Later in the film, the character encounters the poverty of Elisa, a flower seller's daughter who tries to earn money by selling matches in the snow, an episode drawn from the same fairy-tale tradition. These experiences, which Oncle Oley directly or indirectly helps set in motion, are the raw material that will one day become the stories Hans writes as an adult.
His key relationships are with Hans, whose talent he recognizes and encourages, with Hans's father, the shoemaker, and with the mice who first greet him, especially Keke. He is a benevolent guide rather than a main protagonist, appearing to steer the young boy toward the experiences that shape his imagination. The character proved memorable enough to appear again in later years in an animated weather forecast program, in which he delivered nightly reports in the same gentle spirit.
Notable abilities include flying through the air with his umbrella, magically cleaning and redecorating rooms, and perceiving hidden talents in the people he meets. His defining purpose is to bring dreams and inspiration to the human world, and in this story he does so by awakening the storytelling genius of the future author.
His personality is warm, playful, and slightly absent-minded. When he enters the mice's home, he cheerfully uses his magic to clean and redecorate the room, but his enthusiasm gets the better of him and he breaks his own shoes. This accident leads Keke to introduce him to a local shoemaker, who happens to be the father of the young Hans. Through this meeting, Oncle Oley discovers that the boy possesses a remarkable gift for telling stories.
Oncle Oley acts as the catalyst for much of the story's action. When Hans expresses his dream of seeing an opera at the Royal Theater, Oncle Oley gives Hans's father a pair of red Arabian leather shoes as payment for repairing his own footwear, and this gift makes the boy's wish seem within reach. The red shoes, however, become the source of a great disturbance, echoing one of Andersen's most famous tales. Later in the film, the character encounters the poverty of Elisa, a flower seller's daughter who tries to earn money by selling matches in the snow, an episode drawn from the same fairy-tale tradition. These experiences, which Oncle Oley directly or indirectly helps set in motion, are the raw material that will one day become the stories Hans writes as an adult.
His key relationships are with Hans, whose talent he recognizes and encourages, with Hans's father, the shoemaker, and with the mice who first greet him, especially Keke. He is a benevolent guide rather than a main protagonist, appearing to steer the young boy toward the experiences that shape his imagination. The character proved memorable enough to appear again in later years in an animated weather forecast program, in which he delivered nightly reports in the same gentle spirit.
Notable abilities include flying through the air with his umbrella, magically cleaning and redecorating rooms, and perceiving hidden talents in the people he meets. His defining purpose is to bring dreams and inspiration to the human world, and in this story he does so by awakening the storytelling genius of the future author.