Le joueur de flûte

Krysar (The Pied Piper) is a 55-minute film, almost all of it stop-motion animation. That's a total of 3,300 seconds, or 79,200 frames of film, each one a little different than the one before to give the illusion of motion. I've no idea how many person-hours of work went into this little gem, but it shows. The story line follows the fairy tale pretty much, except for the denouement. The sets look like they were made by the folks who did The Cabinet of Caligari and the people puppets have rather angular faces. A rather well-done film, although I found myself wondering if Czechoslovakia had a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - some of the rats in the moat didn't look too happy.

An amazing Czech adult stop-motion animation film, loosely based on the German folk tale the Pipe Piper of Hamelin, directed by Jiri Barta. A real art-house piece of animation that has a mix of Renaissance and Medieval elements.

There are many original elements about this film. The first one is the story, which deviates from the original mostly in the fact that is socially allegorical and there are not children on view, but one at the end. The Hamelin of Barta is a greedy, glutton and lusty society dominated by males, which could perfectly mimic our modern world. The piper is the punisher and redemptor, and the catalyst necessary for human renewal in this sort of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The second element of originality is its language... which is... International language... that is, onomatopoeic sounds, grunts, mumblings and gibbering, perfectly understandable by any viewer in the world. I found it hilarious! The third element of originality is the visual style of the movie, which are traditional and innovative at the same time, very odd actually, but very artistic. There are two elements in the animation: 1/ carved backgrounds with wood puppets, in very dark colors, and 2/ colorful paintings on wood. Hamelin's backgrounds, architecture and building interiors are made of carved wood, as the one you could find for example in some Renaissance choir chairs in some churches and cathedrals, but German expressionist in its design, with oppressive spaces, diagonal and curved lines that seem to collapse, with unbalanced proportions and oniric elements. The atmosphere is very dark and oppressive. On the contrary, the paintings are bucolic and very artistic and match the sort of countryside painting that you could find in Books of Hours of the late Middle Ages (Gothic period), and they are beautiful and colorful, light and human, a total counterpoint to the rest of the visuals, especially because they are associated to the most human characters of the story. The truth is that I found in the movie very Bergman's, in a way, with elements that you could find in movies like The Seventh Seal or the Virgin Spring.

The third element of originality is the design of the characters. Most of them are wood puppets, with mobile parts and fabric clothing. They are angular-faced but tall and thing. Also wooden but with a complete different style is the character of the piper, who looks like a mix of walking skeleton, a Goth rock band member, and an apocalyptic angel. Finally, the two good characters in the city are the little lady living in the outskirts of the city and the fisherman, who are made of wood, but very refined, human-like, and very sweet and delicate (a reflection of their soul). The rest of the characters are, of course, the rats, real ones (although they looked more mice than rats to me), the size of the human characters, naughty monsters as greedy as the humans, which move rapidly and awkwardly, giving them a grotesque aspect that goes perfectly with the whole style of the film.

Finally, the music is terrific - a mix of dark classic pieces and rock sounds with the ethereal sound of the flute as only breaker.

The end is great, and has nothing to do with the traditional story. It couldn't be otherwise as the movie is an allegorical reflection on society and humanity. The title in Czech means rat trapper, which works not only literally, as the Hamelin dwellers are as much as pest as the rats are.

The only thing I did not like is that some general scenes were repeated over and over, like some of the movement in the cities or some landscape shots.

The film is not for small kids because there are too many hard things to explain: lust, rape, killing of animals, stealing, death, and the general nastiness of the dwellers of the city.

Fantastic.

Probably Jiří Barta's most famous movie, "Krysař" is his own, very twisted (but fully relevant) version of "The Pied Piper". And it's like no version that you've ever seen.

We all know that Hamelin is overrun with rats, but this requires further explanation in Barta's interpretation. You see, the people are no better than the rodents: greedy, lusty, and often violent towards each other, the inhabitants of Hamelin are absolutely vile (except for the lone woman and a fisherman). But the actual rats present an impressive scenario. Far from the killing machines that the story often makes them out to be, these rats appear to be really clever, always figuring out ways to steal the humans' belongings.

As for the piper himself, he comes across as a sort of otherworldly presence, especially because of what he does at the end. But it's the only thing that he can do. Hamelin, meanwhile, looks like something out of a 1920s German movie.

Another movie version of the story that I've seen is one in which Donovan plays the piper. That version pertains more to the Bubonic Plague, which is probably what the original story centered on. This one is an analogy for a morally bankrupt society. The repulsive decadence that has taken over Hamelin is beyond redemption.

So this is truly one that I recommend.

Krysar, also known as "The Rat Catcher", is a truly beautiful bit of obscure animation, executed by Czech animator Jiri Barta (not to be confused with the late Jiri Trnka).

The most amazing aspect of Krysar, other than its sheer oddity, is the unfathomable amount of labor that went into its production. If you manage to find a copy of this film with "the making of" included, you'll be astonished as characters evolve from sketches into finalized wax sculpts, which are later perfectly replicated in wood by a master carver.

While the storytelling itself is linear, the characters faux language makes Krysar an interesting ride. People often liken the visuals with cubism, which does a somewhat accurate job of summing up the animations crooked 3D format. Every shot is a very well planned collage of 3D puppets and skewed sets.

If you enjoy stop motion, and animation in general, this is a very colorful, disturbing, and worthwhile piece of puppet animation. While not entirely suitable for children, I wouldn't hesitate in showing this to teens.

After years of being unable to purchase Barta's work within the US, a wonderful compilation of his work has finally been released onto a region 1 DVD. The disc is entitled "The Labyrinth of Darkness", which I find rather humorous. A compilation of Barta's work was released years earlier in Japan, with almost the same title "Labyrinth of Darkness and Light". I guess America's Grimm loving population is too cool for the light.

Related Fable Animations: Old Czech Legends - Jiri Trnka The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship - Francis Vose

I first decided that I had to see this film after seeing a few video clips of it at a website (if you want to find them - and trust me, it's worth it - go to a search engine and type in "Krysar clips"). The animation style was like nothing that I had ever seen before. If anything, it was like cubism in motion - more like the 1920 expressionistic horror film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (except in colour) than any traditional animation. Perspectives are skewed, characters are disfigured, and everything is made out of a material that you don't usually hear about in connection with animation - wood.

Having decided to watch it, I did a bit of searching and found that it was available on two different DVDs. First, there was a DVD available through some Japanese sites called "Labyrinth Of Darkness & Light" which featured most of Jiri Barta's work including Krysar (it came out to 118 minutes in total). Unfortunately, it cost 6000Yen, which is about $55USD - a little too expensive for me (EDIT: As of September 16, 2006, this DVD has been released in the US for a much cheaper price, and with English subtitles! This is definitely the version to get!). Second, there was another version of Krysar available by itself on a PAL R2 DVD for around 20 Euro on several French online stores. That's the one I bought - the PAL R2 thing wasn't an issue for me because I have a modded DVD player (they cost as little as $80 nowadays). This DVD also included a colourful 10-page booklet with an interview with Jiri Barta.

There were no English subtitles on my DVD, but this wasn't really problem because outside of the introduction all characters speak only gibberish in the film, a technique which works surprisingly well and also makes this film transcend language barriers.

Once I finally watched the film, I was simply amazed. Not only was the visual design simply sublime at all levels, but the music was memorable and appropriate, and the film worked really well as a story - the fears that I had about this film turning out to be just eye candy were completely allayed. There were many scenes in this movie which were genuinely powerful, a fair few which were amusing (in a grotesque way), and some which were quite beautiful. Even now as I write this, there are many scenes that I still remember vividly - the scene where the Hamelin city elite engage in debauchery, spilling wine and gnawing on meat bones; the scenes where the rats take complete control of the city at night; the scene in which a painting is created as the pied piper plays on his pipe; and many others.

If you're a fan of the unusual, and don't mind seeing something so completely different from Hollywood and Disney movies (which is not to say that there's nothing to appreciate in Hollywood/Disney movies), you really owe it to yourself to see this film. Watch the film clips that you can find on a Google search, and if you like what you see, just remember - there's a lot more of that in the full film, and those aren't even the best bits.

One thing that I DISLIKED though was that the "Krysar" DVD came without a chapter select, which in my opinion is inexcusable for a film that's nearly an hour long. Still, the image and sound quality were very good. I guess life can't be perfect. ;)

If you have any more questions about this film or the DVD, don't hesitate to send me a private message (you can do this by clicking on my name at the top of this review).