This is Jiri Barta's masterpiece. It's not just one of the best stop-motion animated shorts I've ever seen in my life; it's not just a fascinating adaptation of a beloved fairy-tale; it's also a technically-impressive work of cinema, a revolutionary work that sets new standards. Or at least it would be if Barta were better known in the world of cinema, or at least in a world of animation that isn't dominated by Japanese animation and Pixar.
The movie is made in wood cut-outs, from the city to the characters. The architecture and anatomy is ugly, twisted and sinister. Only one character has the clean beauty of a Jiri Trnka puppet, a woman the Pied Piper falls in love with. Everything else has an atmosphere of decay and evil.
To this town come hundreds of rats, destroying everything. A mysterious flutist comes in and, as the fairy tale says, drives all the rats away to a lake where they drown. The citizens of the town refuse to pay the flutist for his work and his terrifying revenge manifests itself. At this point the movie becomes less grotesque than the fairy-tale. Originally the flutist drives away the children to drown like the rats. In the movie his music changes people into rats and the population follows him to death. There's no child massacre, which left me very sad because I always thought this was a wonderful way to end the tale.
After watching this movie I'm still trying to figure out whether or not the rats are real. They certainly sound real and if they are, Barta has really achieved a new level of film-making in this movie. I can't imagine how someone could train these animals to perform some of the feats they did in this movie. This and many other amazing things in the movie make this one of the best cinematic experiences I've had in a long time.
The movie is made in wood cut-outs, from the city to the characters. The architecture and anatomy is ugly, twisted and sinister. Only one character has the clean beauty of a Jiri Trnka puppet, a woman the Pied Piper falls in love with. Everything else has an atmosphere of decay and evil.
To this town come hundreds of rats, destroying everything. A mysterious flutist comes in and, as the fairy tale says, drives all the rats away to a lake where they drown. The citizens of the town refuse to pay the flutist for his work and his terrifying revenge manifests itself. At this point the movie becomes less grotesque than the fairy-tale. Originally the flutist drives away the children to drown like the rats. In the movie his music changes people into rats and the population follows him to death. There's no child massacre, which left me very sad because I always thought this was a wonderful way to end the tale.
After watching this movie I'm still trying to figure out whether or not the rats are real. They certainly sound real and if they are, Barta has really achieved a new level of film-making in this movie. I can't imagine how someone could train these animals to perform some of the feats they did in this movie. This and many other amazing things in the movie make this one of the best cinematic experiences I've had in a long time.