The King and the Mockingbird (1980)

Perfect cast and a good story

An Exercise In Nonsense

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

I watched this movie when I was a kid, forgot the movie, but constantly had it on the back of my mind. I just remembered a the indescribable love between two portraits that came to life. I rediscovered the movie (and its soundtrack) last year, and it's just fantastic. When I was younger, I felt the dark vibes coming off of it, but didn't think much about it until I saw it last year. I was disturbed, and I loved it. The dictator, wild animals, weird police people, underground city, and the music (especially the music) just worked together so well. Everything is so creepy- especially the ending. The romance between the shepherdess and chimney-sweep is incredibly unique. This entire movie is like Catch-22, a classic Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, and 1984 all wrapped up into one, with an amazing soundtrack.

The little 80 minutes film is a very good animated film. It, however, is not a masterpiece in any way shape or form. There are several problems: in terms of plot it is too simplistic as it is a film made for small children and thus can easily bore most adults. I gave it 7/10 mostly because this film inspirited Miyazaki and Takahata to make true masterpieces out of this art form.The quality of the animation, while good for the 1950's, is not remotely comparable to more recent films, such as Princess Mononoke, which have much more realistic physics. Visually this film is quite mediocre as well: the backgrounds lack the details from modern animated features (such as the already mentioned Princess Mononoke). The soundtrack is decent, however. For me it is hard to understand that someone which has watched and understood most Ghibli films would think that this is a masterpiece.Also, finally, there is no such thing as "liking" animation, as there isn't such thing as "liking" live action. Animation is not a genre. Period. It encompasses a huge variety of genres and thus someone who doesn't like this could like Princess Mononoke, for instance, which is a completely different film. Their only similarity is the fact that they are animated and that they have talking animals.

In the spirit of the holiday season I decided to finally watch this classic of animation. Although not an official Christmas movie, I think its light-heartedness and ideas of heroism, solidarity and the triumph of love over tyranny make it a perfect movie for this time of the year.In the vertical kingdom of Takicardia the King Charles V + III = VIII + VIII = XVI rules with an iron fist. He likes no one and no one likes him. His hobby is hunting birds, which attracts the enmity of the title's Mockingbird, a joyful talking bird. The story properly begins when one night the King's portrait comes to life and falls in love with the portrait of a shepherdess, who in turn loves the portrait of a chimney sweep next to her. The King's portrait kills the real one and pursues the fugitive star-crossed lovers, who use the Mockingbird's help to evade the dangers and obstacles on their path to freedom.Paul Grimault and screenwriter Jacques Prévert found the inspiration for this magical story in one of Hans Christian Andersen's many fairy-tales. Production started in 1948 and, after a shorter version came out in 1952, it was released in its complete version in 1980. More than thirty years in the making, The King and the Mockingbird is now considered one of the best animated movies ever made and fans of Japanese animation may like to know that Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki consider it an influence on their work.Like these animators, Grimault and Prévert don't believe animation precludes seriousness. Hidden inside a simple love story is a bigger story about tyranny and class difference. The creators make several parallels between the King and Hitler: in some shots they look the same; in his cult of personality (a factory works non-stop to produce statues of his majesty); and in an scene when he sentences the chimney sweep and the Mockingbird to forced labour, he declares that work is freedom, eerily evoking Auschwitz' motto. The other face of the exuberant Takicardia is the Lower City, a community of poor people living under the streets, hidden from the sun, who maintain hope alive thanks to a blind musician.The animation, very traditional-looking in appearance, is one of the movie's best assets. The Kingdom of Takicardia, designed like an exaggerated fairy-tale castle, is characterized by long vertical lines and deep perspective, giving it the illusion of infinite space. Some of the best scenes are those that simply reveal details of its architecture, like the never-ending steep staircases, the long corridors, or the sombre streets of the cave-like Lower City. There's also retro look in the way technology is drawn (there's a giant robot in the movie that could have walked out of a '50s science fiction movie), and the attention to little details invite the viewer to study each frame for a few minutes just to absorb everything.Fans of animation in the style of the bizarre 2003 French movie The Triplets of Belleville will probably love The King and the Mockingbird. It's a fairy-tale movie full of magic and humor, told in a very tender way with a life-affirming final message. I challenge anyone to watch this movie and not be emotionally affected by it.

I remember watching this in school when i was a kid, later i had a tremendous struggle trying to find it again, finally got it in my hands & have watched it like 10 times since! Animation made by computer opens new grounds for sure, but most of it (if not all until today) has no soul at all, no replaying value either. Check this & don't mind the language, is so well gestured by the characters you'll understand most of & it has an excellent score as well. I can see cubist & futurist artistic movements influenced this movie too. Nothing comes close, even the best anime movie from japan!Only movie i ever will put a 10 on, i guess!