Blowing in the mind
The film Krysař
The film Krysař
“Blow wind blow wherever you may go. Put on your overcoat, take me away” once sang Tom Waits. It was 1987 and the song featured in the album Franks wild years: Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts, composed mainly with his wife Kathleen Brennan for a play of the same name. Curiosly, the mix of wind and sound makes me think on the marvelous animation film Krysař directed by Jiří Barta and released just a year before, in 1986. Krysař means "The rat catcher" and it’s an adaptation of the Rattenfänger von Hameln , a medieval german fairy tale known in the rest of Europe as The Pied Piper of Hamelin. The original story refers to a piper, dressed in multicolored clothing, leading the children away from the town never to return, but in the 16th century the tale was extented including the story of the rats. The adaptation created by Jiří Barta is darker and the story of the children is removed to include a different and more severe ending scene.
By that time Krysař was one of Czechoslovakia's most ambitious animation projects of the eighties and its artistic direction was deeply influenced by the German expressionism. By watching this film the iconic images of films like Nosferatu by Morneau or Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari by Robert Wiene came to you giving even more strenght to the work of Jiří Barta. The opening scene is a mechanism beginning to work in the sunrise. Hamelin is a town of corrupted people, where everything is wasted and money and social rank are the first priority. It’s obvious there's a critics to capitalism which could explain the change of the story’s ending. But the darker review of the medieval story it’s not the main characteristic of the film. The puppets and the set, designed by Jiří Barta deeply inspired by the work of the Catalan sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs in the Front of Passion of the Sagrada Família designed by Antoni Gaudí, are magnificent and create the impression that the rats are more alive than the humans who speak a fictitious language. The result is a wonderful experience that reveals the enormous talent in animation techniques behind the other side of the iron curtain. Times of cold war but also of masters of creativity. The pied piper of Jiří Barta is one of the best proofs of it.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero
Image is a still from the film Krysař by Jiří Barta
All rights reserved
Text by Juan Carlos Romero
Image is a still from the film Krysař by Jiří Barta
All rights reserved