Audio Format: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Video Format: Full Screen 4:3
Languages: Korean, French
Subtitles: English, Korean
Region Code: ALL
Year Made: 1999
Running Time: 70
Princes and Princesses is the latest film from French animator Michel Ocelot. Two years earlier Ocelot had some international success with Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998), a strikingly linedrawn film based on traditional African folktales. For Princes and Princesses, which it took him ten years to make, Ocelot returns to the same form - linedrawn fairytales. It is a delightful and quite beautiful film he produces. All the figures are animated as silhouette shapes, something which in its simplicity has an extraordinary versatility, allowing Ocelot to model styles as diverse as Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to traditional Japanese art.
There's a great deal of visual invention to the film, especially The Sorceress episode with the sorceress's gadgets which repel all attempts at incursion and the delightful drollness of the hero's solution and the twist ending. All the stories are told with a delightful piquance where justice gets a final comeuppance and good wins out as in all fairytales. None of the episodes are weak at all. The most appealing of them is the final Princes and Princesses episode with the prince and princess going through an hilarious series of animal transformations with each kiss in an attempt to regain their original forms.
Especially appealing is the way the film has been construed with a postmodern edge. It is not merely a set of fairytales but a film about animators (who themselves have been animated) making a series of animated fairytale shorts. With each we see them discussing the presentation and design before the curtain literally opens on the tale. Quite delightfully the film stops at midpoint for exactly a one minute break so we can discuss what we have seen so far.
