The Animals and the Brigands (1947)
The second cartoon by Jiri Trnka that was a sensation at the festival in Cannes in 1946 when it defeated the world animation elite of the time. It is a musical fairy-tale based on a famous folk story about animals that deterred thieves.
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So much average
Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
The movie really just wants to entertain people.
I noticed that I'm the first one reviewing Jiří Trnka's "Zvířátka a Petrovtí" ("Animals and Robbers") on IMDb. Trnka's not the most famous director, so that's no surprise. But you should find out about him and watch his movies. This is only the second of his movies that I've seen. It's based on the Grimm brothers' "Town Musicians of Bremen", in which a couple of aging animals suspect that their owners will want to get rid of them, so they decide to move to Bremen to seek a new fortune. In the process, they foil the plans of some robbers.Trnka's adaptation is a more flowery take on the story, with ballet music as the background sound. The cartoon got shown at the Cannes Film Festival right after its release in Czechoslovakia, proving to movie-goers that Eastern Europe could make impressive cartoons too. He used traditional animation as well as stop-motion. To this day, Trnka is known as the Walt Disney of Eastern Europe, and there's no doubt that he influenced Jan vankmajer.I saw the cartoon on YouTube. It has no subtitles, but the action makes the plot clear.