Les secrètes aventures de Tom Pouce

The way that this movie was filmed using clay-mation and live people is amazing. The people are jerky and clumsy, and the clay-mation is smooth and fluid. Too top off that, the entire thing is bizzare and surreal. When I saw it in the theater they showed a short film about Kafka and his Metamorphosis afterwards which was just as fun and twisted. I don't know if it's on the video, but it should be.

I came across this movie due to recommendations from the Eraserhead discussion board. So i had my expectations: i oughta be weird dark, twisted. Well, it is.

It's not a great movie though. It's a very original movie, thaT must be said. But the stop motion simply doesn't work. It's all very lifeless, even the REAL actors seem lifeless.

It has a nice story, and the backgrounds and weird characters look great. great detail toO!But when things start to move, all tensions are lost. I bought the DVD, cause usual the discussion board are really helpfull to me ( thanks IMDb and members!), so at least i have the short movie "the saint inspector". now THAT's great stop motion movie! so i just pretend that the saint inspector is the main feature and tom thumb is just an OK extra :)

This is definitely a visually unique movie, but I also found it to be poignant, provocative, emotionally disturbing, and sad. The heart-wrenching and unfair fate of Tom's laboratory friend and fellow escapee, which was based solely on the way he looked, almost made me cry. I was also moved by Tom's innocence and non-judgemental nature, despite the horrors and tragedies that surrounded him.

I am a big fan of twisted, dark, and weird movies. This film filled in all three quite nicely. It is a stop motion animation film, with live actors. I don't mean that it is a film where stop motion and live action are combined, but a film where live actors are stop motion animated and interact with the more conventional stop motion models. This gives the film a strange, jumpy feel that keeps you on edge right from the start. Also, the makers took the time to make every set seem dirty and stained. They even have insects crawling on just about every surface.

On top of this, it also has a wonderful soundtrack supplied by bands like "Sheep On Drugs", "Startled Insects" and a Theme by John Paul Jones, the former bassist for Led Zepplin.

The plot is similar to the original Tom Thumb, but told in a more current time and twisted around a bit. This gives the film a strangely familiar feel, which I found wonderfully unnerving. The characters don't really speak so much as mumble, which, along with the jerky motion, adds to the un-ease.

All in all, this movie stands right up there with David Lynch and Jan Svankmajer films as a twisted masterpiece.

Dark Bolex Bros. fantasy about the life of a miniature baby born into a world of giant misfits & social freaks who grunt and coo without saying anything intelligent. Out of step time and place, populated by scurrying spiders and other unidentifiable species of insects makes this piece much like the films of the Brothers Quay or the outstanding work of animation master Jan Svankmajer. This is a weird film that blends live-action footage with stop-motion claymation set in a world of dark back alleys; high tech labs, and swampy landscapes of garbage ruins. Tom Thumb is stolen from his home in the seedy part of town by sinister government agents. He later escapes from an evil lab where mutation experiments are performed. Narrowly escaping he finds himself in a land of people his own size fighting the big people alongside Jack the Giant killer. Genuine horror and moving moments that have the power to unsettle and enchant in equal measure. Definitely one of the most intoxicating and mesmerizing animated films I've seen in a very long time.