The Puppet Master: The Films of Jiří Trnka
Screening Dates
  • July 19, 2018 8:15
  • July 21, 2018 4:30

Trnka’s adaptation of a classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale is an enchanting animated jewel box. Framed by live-action sequences—about a lonely boy shut away from fun and play—the story unfolds as a child’s dream vision, a tale of illusion versus reality in which a Chinese emperor is ensorcelled first by the song of a nightingale, then by its mechanical replica. Working in a rich red, green, and gold visual palette, Trnka conjures a hallucinatory storybook world of moonlit bamboo forests, softly glowing Chinese lanterns, and bursting fireworks displays all set to a gorgeous, rhapsodic score by key collaborator Václav Trojan.

No dialogue.

preceded by

Springman and the SS
(Pérák a SS)
Czechoslovakia 1946
Jiří Brdečka, Jiří Trnka
13 min. 35mm

Trnka combines 2‑D and collage animation to striking effect in this zanily offbeat, anti-Nazi lampoon, which crosses Max Fleischer–like absurdism with a biting satirical edge. His first collaboration with Jiří Brdečka.

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