The Adventures Of Prince Achmed [1926]

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Customer reviews

review by: M.Pearce date: 2008-08-11 rating:
so far so excellent, i'd recommend raising kids with this
this film has done a fantastic job, i'd rather raise the kids on this than on Disney's Alladin, so what it's scary in parts but in all honesty Disney just faffs about with having to put rubbish humour all over the large sum of his films; whilst this and the stuff of Tekuza (the japanese equivalent of Disney and 'Father of Anime') just gets on with it.

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review by: date: 2007-07-23 rating:
Creating fairyland with scissors , paper and camera
The only example of Lotte Reiniger's exquisite art at present available, it is difficult to convey the magic and beauty of this film. Animated sillhouettes show an enchanting story . Whilst beautiful, it is not the best example of her work. Tantalising morsels are shown in the excellent 'extra' which shows the staggering talent behind these cut-out scenes and players. Where are all those delightful short fairy stories which first enchanted me on Children's Television in the 1950s ? Please bring them together and release them to us soon.

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review by: date: 2004-04-29 rating:
An entertainment of shadows
Lotte Reiniger made this enchanting film with a small team, frame by painstaking frame. The characters and scenery remain shadows against tinted backgrounds - it plays like the dream shadow-theatre that you could never have actually made yourself. The stories, adapted from the Arabian Nights, are exciting and absorbing as well for young children, a little tiresome for adults, though Jean Renoir called this 'a masterpiece'. On this DVD we also get a well-made and thoughtful documentary on Reiniger which outlines her biography, has interviews with relatives and experts, and - best of all - contains many beautiful clips from her other shadow films which I hope will be released soon.

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review by: date: 2001-10-14 rating:
A defining example of the unique art of animation.
The Adventures of Prince Achmed by Berlin avant-gardist Lotte Reiniger was one of the world's first feature-length animated films and premièred in 1926 (with Fritz Lang in the audience!). Employing her unsurpassed silhouette techniques, Reiniger hand-cut and crafted each individual image in this story based on The Arabian Nights. Assisted by husband producer/photographer Carl Koch and fellow animators Berthold Bartosch and Walter Ruttmann, the film took a painstaking 3 years and 300,000 camera shots to complete.
Sadly, much of Reiniger's unique work, including the original negative of this film, was destroyed in Berlin at the end of World War II. However, a nitrate positive had been preserved in the archives of the BFI (British Film Insitute) and, in 1999, 100 years after the birth of Reiniger, new prints were made from it and the original film restored. Fortunately too, Wolfgang Zeller's original music score had been preserved in the Library of Congress, Washington.
To this day it remains timeless, classic, sophisticated, poetic, delicate, magical... a defining example of the unique art of animation.


review by: date: 2001-08-23 rating:
Watch it with incense!
This is a remarkable film; made in 1926 by a handful of people under the direction of Lotte Reiniger, ten years before Disney's 'Snow White', this is the first animated feature film still in existence - and we can count ourselves lucky, since the original negatives were all lost in the war. Told in lovingly crafted silhouetted, with a first-class orchestral score, this is an engaging, magical adventure with echoes of the Arabian Nights and Chinese shadow theatre - modern kids might find it heavy going but the child in the rest of us should love it if we give it a chance. Beautiful and atmospheric, with a finely told dramatic story, this is a delightful film and the BFI have done a superb job in rescuing it from the archives and restoring it. Turn the lights down, take the phone off the hook, light some joss sticks and enjoy something quite unique.

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Similar categories

Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Classics . Drama
Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Drama
Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Science Fiction & Fantasy . Animated
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Video . Video . Categories . Classic Films . Drama . 1920s
Video . Video . Categories . Classic Films . Silent Era
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