Papageno

Papageno (1935)

*** (out of 4)

Here's another silhouette short from German filmmaker Lotte Reiniger and this one here is based on the bird-catcher from Mozart's The Magic Flute. I haven't seen any of the other films but from what I've read Reiniger spent a lot of time making films dealing with her love of opera and that's clearly what this is. Once again the best thing about this film is the silhouette animation itself as it really leaps off the screen. The images were quite striking and they certainly make you focus on what's going on. The story itself was a good one and I really loved the sequence with the snake as well as the ending. If you're a fan of the director then you'll certainly want to check this out.

First of all I must disappoint everyone who thought that Walt Disney made the first long animated movie. Long before him there were people who made animated masterpieces. The first was Windsor McKay, the man who brought us "Gertie the Dinosaur" and another important person was a woman from Germany. Her name was Lotte Reiniger. She is the inventor of the so called silhouette film and she has made with "The Adventures of Prince Ahmed" (1926) the first full length animated movie of the film history. Papageno is a 10 minute example of her extraordinary film art. It based on the "Magic Flute" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Nothing against computer animation but the handmade silhouettes have more live than all computer animated figures of the modern cinema together. Watch the films of Lotte Reiniger and you will agree.

Before beginning my review, I must take exception to another reviewer who holds that the first animated movie was by Windsor McKay. Although a great artist, he was by no means the first; Émile Cohl was regularly producing animated films in 1908 -- among the best remembered is FANTASMAGORIE --and you will find quick-sketch artist work by Tom Merry earlier on.... and works by Émile Reynaud like THE CLOWN AND HIS DOG from 1892.

But let us discuss Lotte Reiniger and this short subject. Reiniger worked in a corner of animation that few did: silhouette animation, for which she created carefully-articulated figures and moved them against a light background. This gave an air of intimacy to her work, as if the audience were eavesdropping on its subjects, that has never been equaled.

In this one she tackles not just the story of Mozart's Magic Flute, but its music and the courtship of Papageno and Papagena, in her usual fine mixture of beauty and humor.... sometimes black humor, as the viewer will note the ugliness of the snake that interrupts their courtship and the parallel hideousness of his suicide's rope. Notice the awkwardness of Papageno's movements and the grace of his love's. But most important of all, see it and marvel at her artistry that is so great that almost no one has dared to attempt it.