The Adventures of Prince Achmed

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The oldest extant animated feature, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) was made by Lotte Reiniger using the silhouette technique she invented. Reiniger manipulated cutouts made from cardboard and thin sheets of lead under the camera to create an Arabian Nights world of delicate, filigree backgrounds and intricately jointed figures. With the assistance of Aladdin, the Witch of the Fiery Mountain, and a magic horse, the title character battles the evil African sorcerer to win the hand of Princess Peri Banu. Working from surviving nitrate prints, German and British archivists have lovingly restored the film: the backgrounds are tinted in delicate pastels rather than the black and white of previously available versions. Included with the film is Katja Raganelli's pretty documentary on Reiniger, which erroneously insists Prince Achmed was the first animated feature "in the history of cinema." Unrated: suitable for ages 8 and older; minor violence. --Charles Solomon

Description

The first full-length animated film is still hailed as an enchanting masterpiece and one of the great classics: beautiful, mesermizing, and utterly seductive! Director Lotte Reiniger creates pure cinematic magic with her hand-cut silhouettes and, with her elegant and intricate designs, brings characters vividly to life with a rare lyrical quality. Taken from "The Arabian Nights," the film tells the story of a wicked sorcerer who tricks Prince Achmed into mounting a magical flying horse which sends the rider off on a flight to his death. But the prince foils the evil plan and soars headlong into a series of wondrous adventures, joining forces with Aladdin and the Witch of the Fiery Mountains, doing battle with the sorcerer's army of monsters and demons, and falling in love with the bautiful Princess Peri Banu. Beautifully restored with its spectacular original color tinting and featuring a new orchestral recording of the magnificent original score, this dazzling adventure will enthrall children and film enthusiasts of all ages.

Customer Reviews:

Look at images on Google.......2007-08-22

To get an idea of the beauty of this film, I suggest you do a Google image search for it.

Mesmerizing!.......2007-01-16

If you've never seen it, you probably can't imagine how a silent movie of animated silhouettes could be anything but dull.

If you have seen it, you know better. The visuals are all astounding, and they just keep coming. The story is fascinating, full of the unexpected, and the music is great. This is not just a stale piece of film history . . . it's a great movie!

Incidentally, the aspect ratio on this disc is correct at 4:3. If some museum showed it widescreen, as reported by another reviewer, then they had their equipment set up incorrectly.

The oldest surviving animated feature film.......2007-01-03

Visiting last week the exhibition," The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America" at Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, I was very lucky to watch as a part of the exhibit Charlotte (Lotte) Reiniger's "Die Geschichte des Prinzen Achmed" (The Adventures of Prince Achmed"), completed in 1926, which makes it THE oldest surviving animated feature film. Lotte Reiniger (June 2, 1899 - June 19, 1981) was a German (and later a British) silhouette animator and film director. Through elaborating articulated paper silhouettes set to an original score by Wolfgang Zeller, Reiniger combines in "Prince Achmed..." several fairy tales from the Thousand and One Nights aka Arabian Nights. Reiniger was ahead of Walt Disney by a decade using her innovative camera which separates foreground from background to produce 3-D illusion. She also experimented with wax and sand to create magical special effects. The result is simply stunning considering that the film is 80 years old. It did not age at all, it is paced extremely well, and its backgrounds literally hypnotize the viewers of any age. By the power of her creativity and imagination, Reiniger takes the viewers to the dream world of mesmerizing and magic characters and their incredible adventures.

Wonderful Animation!.......2006-12-04

Wonderful animation and detailed character design! Action-packed and a very enjoyable plot. I don't know if Lotte Reiniger made other other movies of this type but I'll buy them if I learn of them. A must-see!

Absolutely amazing.......2006-10-11

I don't really know why, but there's something about silhouette animation that's amazing to me. Maybe it's because it's so different from what I'm use to in terms of animation, such as CGI and cels. But no matter what the plot is, if I see a silhouette cartoon I have to sit through it.

I'm so happy I came upon 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed'. I enjoyed it just as much as I enjoyed any animated movie out on the market today. I didn't feel lost in the plot or bogged down by useless captions. Everything seemed to fit perfectly. Without sound and without facial expressions there isn't much to work with, but the body language of the silhouette puppets had me laughing and in tears at times. And when I found out that not only was this the oldest surviving animated feature in the world but Lotte Reiniger and her husband Carl painstakingly animated this over a 3 year period, I was even more enthralled.

This movie is a real treat and I recommend this to everyone. If you've never seen a silent silhouette animation before, it might take a while to get into. But believe me, this movie is certainly worth it.

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