Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed
GER 67m Dir: Carl Koch and Lotte Reiniger
Based on: One Thousand and One Nights
The Adventures of Prince Achmed is generally referred to as the first animated feature film and features a style invented by Lotte Reiniger that she called 'silhouette animation'.
I had heard about Reiniger before watching this but I never imagined the complexity of the silhouettes. Every single frame is a proper work of art with detailed lattice work or leaves and the characters looking impossibly human given they've just been cut out of paper. The patience and dedication that must have gone into making this film are unbelievable.
The story combines several of the tales of the Arabian Nights and frankly isn't especially compelling but it doesn't need to be when the style of the film transports you to a magical world. There's monsters and romance and action sequences and set pieces and exotic locations and within a few minutes you've forgotten that this was all created simply by cutting out paper. The medium seems to primitive but the resulting film is actually hugely sophisticated.
Much more than a film, this is truly a work of art.
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