The Adventures of Prince Achmed
1926
Directed by Lotte Reiniger
I had difficulty finding this one, and even ordered a DVD from a shady internet site that caused my DVD player to emit several interesting noises. I was finally able to stream this on a website that I am sure is, ahem, entirely reputable but may cease to existence at any moment. So I thought it was prudent to get while the getting was good.
A prince has many assorted adventures, including riding a flying horse and falling in love with a princess. The movie was animated using the silhouette technique. It's so beautifully done that it is hard to believe they were in fact limited by technology, and they didn't just use this technique for aesthetic purposes.
Evidently, the Listmakers noticed they had seriously underrepresented women on this List. Apparently, they had to travel all the way back to 1926 in order to find one they liked. As a technical achievement this is incredible and watching it in color was a fascinating experience.
This isn't the easiest movie to track down, but it's worth watching if you do stumble across it, especially if you are into tracking the development of animation.
RATING: ***--
Interesting Facts:
Interesting Facts:
Lotte Reiniger cut the figures out of black cardboard with scissors, and joined the pieces with thread to animate them.
About 250,000 stills were made, with 96,000 used in the film.
The effort that went into this movie is just staggering and it is so beautiful. Too bad the story itself gets a bit boring after a while.
ReplyDelete..I recall struggling to get hold of this as well.. I think in the end I paid far too much for a 2nd hand copy on Ebay.. but fortunately it wasn't then immediately re-released, so I was able to resell it for pretty much the same as I paid.
ReplyDeleteSo.. it's good isn't it.. But, somehow... The amazement at the technical and craft were the main point .. Yes, it was entertaining and enjoyable, well worth watching, but a film I wouldn't bother with again. Your 3 seems a little harsh.. make mine a 3.5