Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed

Lotte Reiniger's "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" is one of the most amazing achievements in the history of cinema. The first animated movie ever, Achmed was based on the ancient stories "Arabian Nights." It took her three whole years to make, shooting over 250,000 cardboard cutouts with the assistance of her husband Carl Koch.

The German silent film begins with the creation of a flying horse. The African Magician tricks Prince Achmed into flying the horse, hoping to rid the kingdom of Achmed's presence. But Achmed is able to control the horse, and flies off to an island, where he finds the beautiful princess Peri Banu. In order to win her heart he must defeat the Magician, the Chinese Emperor, and an army of demons, with the help of Aladdin and a mysterious witch.

The irony of this movie is that the German subtitles are subtitled in English. But don't let that throw you, this silent masterpiece is magnificent film-making at its best, and certainly a landmark in cinema.

From the "Arabian Nights" this is a German silent animated film (with music score and color tints). It tells the story of Prince Achmed and hid adventures when he gets on a flying horse. He falls in love with Princess Peri Banu, fights the evil Sorcerer and meets up with the Fire Mountain Witch (!!) and Aladdin (whose story is also told).

This was done in silhouette animation--they use cutouts instead of drawings and film them frame by frame moving each piece a little at a time--this took three years to complete!

It's truly incredible--the cutouts are incredibly detailed and the animation itself is flawless--the characters move very smoothly. The story moves briskly and the color tints and great music score just complement the animation perfectly. Sadly this is little known. Maybe with the restored version playing it will get the recognition it richly deserves.

A great film for the whole family--if the kids don't mind reading subtitles.

Contrary to popular belief, 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed' was not precisely the first feature-length animated film. It was pre-dated by two Argentinian films directed by Quirino Cristiani, 'El Apóstol / The Apostle (1917)' and 'Sin dejar rastros / Without a Trace (1918),' both now considered lost. Thus, this film does hold the prestigious title of being the oldest surviving feature-length animated film, and what a delight it is! Exclusively featuring silhouette animation, in which manipulated cutouts made from cardboard and thin sheets of lead are lit from the back, the film runs for approximately 65 minutes, and is based on elements taken from the collection '1001 Arabian Nights.'

When a devious African magician tricks adventurous young Prince Achmed into riding a magical flying horse, he is whisked away from his home kingdom and taken to the mysterious island of Wak-Wak, where he falls in love with the beautiful Peri Banu. However, the evil magician, who desires Achmed's sister Dinarsade, kidnaps Peri Banu and sells her to the Chinese Emperor. With the help of Aladdin, and the Witch of the Fiery Mountain, Prince Achmed must defeat his sinister foe and recover his true love.

The silhouette animation in the film is really quite outstanding, and a surprising level of detail is achieved. A scene I particularly enjoyed was the climactic battle between the Witch of the Fiery Mountain and the Africian magician, in which both parties magically transformed themselves into various deadly creatures in order to get the upper hand. The use of different background tints was also co-ordinated carefully in a way that would define the atmosphere of each scene. Notably, this was achieved quite well as the Prince, for the first time, began to rise high into the sky on his newly-acquired flying horse. From a very bright, optimistic yellow, the background changed to a dark, ominous blue, as the onset of strong winds threatened to pluck Achmed from his mount and toss him to the ground far below. Though these tints were present in the original negatives, the loss of these negatives meant that the surviving nitrate prints had to be carefully restored.

In order to rescue the lovely Peri Banu, Prince Achmed must battle a wide array of devilish beasts and monsters, ranging from huge snakes to hundreds of bat-like demons. A distinct advantage of this type of film-making over live-action films is that complex and expensive visual effects are not required. In the scope of this animation, absolutely anything in possible. Nonetheless, one can only imagine how much work must have gone into animating each singular frame of the film. With its endearing style of animation, and a classic tale of love and adventure, Lotte Reiniger's 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed' is a must-see for all film and animation enthusiasts.

The idea for "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" is unusual and interesting, and Lotte Reiniger uses it to create an enjoyable and distinctive feature. To make such a different approach work so well must have taken large amounts of both skill and patience, as well as the creativity to adapt the stories to the format.

The cutout-style animation that the feature uses ruled out a lot of options for the film-makers, and it put a premium on the careful design of the figures and on well-planned story-telling. At first, the plainness of the silhouette figures is somewhat apparent, but it's not long at all before the story is involving enough, and the animation creative enough, to give the characters and events plenty of life and energy.

The plot itself is taken from some of the old "Arabian Nights" tales, much of it from some of the less-familiar episodes. It is a good adaptation of the material, and the careful details in the outlines of the silhouette figures soon create an atmosphere that works even without colors or special visual tricks.

The style allows your own imagination to flesh out the characters, rather than providing an artist's depiction for every detail in the story. In this respect it makes an interesting contrast with the more usual kind of fantasy film that does try to make everything expressly visual. As soon as you get used to the style and concentrate on the story, it becomes quite interesting and at times even engrossing. Overall, it's an imaginative feature that works quite well.

Visiting earlier today 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.