Prologue

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.

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.

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

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.

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.