A Thousand and One Nights

An unforgettable children's adventure that I hadn't had the chance to see again for almost a quarter of a century. And when I was lucky enough to do so at the Karel Zeman Festival (at the Karel Zeman Museum) among a crowd of little kids on a chair about thirty centimeters high where I had precariously perched, I was overwhelmed by such nostalgia that a tear might have been shed if I were alone at the screening. Giants, a flying carpet, Magnet Mountain, and a sultan with an indispensable beautiful daughter around every corner. It's not entirely flawless when it comes to the individual stories (the episode with the monkeys in particular, usually beloved of the audience, threw me uncomfortably off tempo), but the overall atmosphere, combined with Jan Tříska's voice, takes your breath away even almost half a century after it was made. (22/11/2017)

In the 1970s, after a series of experiments with live-action films, Karel Zeman returned to his roots and began to focus on animated films. Unlike many of his colleagues, he was able to work undisturbed, but he directed his efforts toward non-conflicting fairy tales. His three feature-length animated films were among the highlights of Czech film production during the normalization years. They were also made possible through collaboration with West German producers. Animated filmmaking did not suffer from the strict and limiting ideological oversight like live-action films did, but the film did suffer when narrator Jan Tříska soon emigrated to the United States and the film disappeared from screens for a long time. In this case, Zeman turned to an exotic motif from oriental fairy tales when he adapted the adventures of Sindbad the sailor. It is evident in A Thousand and One Nights that it was originally intended for adult audiences as it contains erotic and bloody motifs. Zeman partially suppressed them, but even so, the mortality of fairy tale characters is above average for Czech fairy tale classics. As always, Zeman's films are characterized by top-notch visual processing and a lightly ironic subtext. Overall impression: 90%. (16/02/2013)