Prologue

'PROLOGUE': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

A 6 minute British animated short film; about a gruesome battle, between Spartan and Athenian warriors (2,400 years ago), as seen through the eyes of a young girl. The short is extremely violent, and it also contains full frontal (animated) male nudity. It was directed, and animated, by Richard Williams; and it was produced by Imogen Sutton (Williams' wife). The battle scene is really well done; brilliantly animated and very realistic looking. There's not a lot to the movie, other than that though; a little girl sees it, and she's heartbroken by it. The animation is extremely impressive; but it's my least favorite, of this year's Academy Award nominated animated shorts.

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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

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".

Prologue (2015)

*** (out of 4)

Richard Williams bizarre animated short managed to pick up an Oscar nomination and it's somewhat hard to believe considering how violent and gory the picture is. The film takes place over two thousand years ago as Spartan and Athenian fighters do battle to the death.

It seems that reviews are rather mixed on this one and it's easy to see why. The film contains some full frontal nudity, graphic violence and some gore, which will certainly have your eyes wide open but at the same time I guess this might be too much for some even in an animated form. For the most part I thought the six minutes went by fast and I'd argue that the animation itself was quite good. There's really no story to speak of but just violent battle sequences with blood flowing.

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.