Prologue

Just found this, what I found out was the late Richard Williams' final film, on Facebook. It begins with a bug going out one flower to another and then segues to a bunch of men-one completely naked, one with some armor-fighting with swords and a few other weapons. I'll stop there and just say this was quite excellent in the way the figures seem life-like with great action and drama to spare. R.I.P. Mr. Williams

Impressive non verbal cartoon of high seriousness. No Pink Panthers here. It's also a long trip from Williams' The LITTLE ISLAND or the disaster of The PRINCESS & THE COBBLER.

Spending years doing one frame one drawing on paper, before state of the art modification, to achieve a striking, exceptionally fluid style, this one is a break from what we've seen from Williams.

The labor of love short film uses the Spartan-Athenian conflict for it's imagery.

We see aggression and its consequences in a sometimes startling manifestation.

War is hell and it always has been. I think that sometimes when animation is used, it is thought to be cartoon-like in the kindest sense. So when the realities of face to face battle are portrayed we seem to believe that we've somehow been betrayed by the filmmaker. There are no winners here, only the slaughter of our opponents and the end is meaningless. The face of he child and the old woman, wonderfully portrayed, are what should be etched in our memories. There is nothing clean about war and this shows it in spades.

This was a very unusual nominee at the screening because it was shown last (after the commended shorts) and carried a lengthy warning that children should not stay in the theater to see it. After seeing "Prologue", I completely understand and it is not appropriate for children. However, I also think it's not appropriate to be seen by anyone!

The film is gorgeously animated using pencils and a bit of colored pencil. I loved this style of animation and the film was beautiful...yet I give it a D rating. This is because there is almost no story at all and the film was just god-awful and joyless.

It consists of four people fighting some sort of itsy-bitsy war in ancient times. Like some of these ancient warriors, two of them were naked, but their genitalia didn't offend me. After all, that is how some of them most likely fought. What bothered me was that there really wasn't any story...just four guys viciously killing each other...very viciously. There is blood galore as well as a lovely scene near the end when one of them stabs the other to death by plunging a sword into the other guy's testicles! Or was it his anus...either way, it was just incredibly nasty and gross...and seemingly pointless.

UPDATE: The Oscar went to "Bear Story".

The animation was exellent, I give it a 8 stars because as a person who is into historical reenacment I found some pieces historically innacurate with the way figures fought and were equipt but this can be forgiven because this animation shows 4 skirmishers not hoplites. The negative reviews I have seen so far are a testiment to human deniel and misinformation/lack of infomation. The animation has a story, it's the Peloponissian war, a war that happened not a fantastic event that most of your might think. It potrays perfectly the gruesomeness of such combat instead of making it look like a hero movie like most pieces of modern cinema do. For all those who review this movie negatively and actaully think what they are waching is just two guys killing each other for just cause then you have nothing more to do but to simply open a history book to realise this doesn't just have a story but it's a recreation of a real moment in human history.