Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Polaris_DiB Okay. So this is the type of movie that illicits a lot of reactions from a lot of people, but for me is almost impossibly good. At this point Barta has obviously gotten his craft down to a tee, and no more realistic movement of puppets could be created than this. But "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" is also impossibly detailed in ways that are stunning, compelling, and in a way terrifying. In very rare cases, I see movies that are so well done that I almost feel like they shouldn't exist as a Greek myth-style affront to the gods. This is one of those cases, where anybody even remotely familiar with how much work goes into making something like this is promised to be absolutely dazzled out of their wits.That's not to say that you need any familiarity with animation to be impressed with this movie. The woodcuts, perspectives, and movements are like Escher in movement; the story is haunting and disturbing; and the atmosphere--Oh GOD the atmosphere!--is the stuff that creeps into and out of bad dreams. Most of it is the detail in the imagery, but the music is very instrumental to the effect. And Barta, familiar with multiple styles of animation as he is, understands also to keep the dialog down to nonsense syllables and screechings in order that any viewer can understand the story simply on the power of its visuals.This movie is largely about the evils of greed in industrialization. The first quarter of the movie is about the development of a town from hard-working home-builders to over-institutionalized, locked-doors scared, hoarding, unhappy, angry people whose lack of real empathy and social value leads to an infestation of rats. Many people are familiar with the fairy-tale on which this movie is based, so describing the rest of the plot would be redundant, but for the care to mention that the Pied Piper's revenge upon the townsfolks' ignorance and greed is an unforgettable vengeance tale almost beyond imagining. This ain't your childhood fairy tale.This movie has it all, really. Stunning art, superb animation, great storytelling, foreboding atmosphere, dramatically compelling music, an important message, and a unique vision. It not only stands out in Barta's career, it stands out from cinema as a whole. Truly a movie you must see before you die.--PolarisDiB

Niffiwan I first decided that I had to see this film after seeing a few video clips of it at a website (if you want to find them - and trust me, it's worth it - go to a search engine and type in "Krysar clips"). The animation style was like nothing that I had ever seen before. If anything, it was like cubism in motion - more like the 1920 expressionistic horror film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (except in colour) than any traditional animation. Perspectives are skewed, characters are disfigured, and everything is made out of a material that you don't usually hear about in connection with animation - wood.Having decided to watch it, I did a bit of searching and found that it was available on two different DVDs. First, there was a DVD available through some Japanese sites called "Labyrinth Of Darkness & Light" which featured most of Jiri Barta's work including Krysar (it came out to 118 minutes in total). Unfortunately, it cost 6000Yen, which is about $55USD - a little too expensive for me (EDIT: As of September 16, 2006, this DVD has been released in the US for a much cheaper price, and with English subtitles! This is definitely the version to get!). Second, there was another version of Krysar available by itself on a PAL R2 DVD for around 20 Euro on several French online stores. That's the one I bought - the PAL R2 thing wasn't an issue for me because I have a modded DVD player (they cost as little as $80 nowadays). This DVD also included a colourful 10-page booklet with an interview with Jiri Barta.There were no English subtitles on my DVD, but this wasn't really problem because outside of the introduction all characters speak only gibberish in the film, a technique which works surprisingly well and also makes this film transcend language barriers.Once I finally watched the film, I was simply amazed. Not only was the visual design simply sublime at all levels, but the music was memorable and appropriate, and the film worked really well as a story - the fears that I had about this film turning out to be just eye candy were completely allayed. There were many scenes in this movie which were genuinely powerful, a fair few which were amusing (in a grotesque way), and some which were quite beautiful. Even now as I write this, there are many scenes that I still remember vividly - the scene where the Hamelin city elite engage in debauchery, spilling wine and gnawing on meat bones; the scenes where the rats take complete control of the city at night; the scene in which a painting is created as the pied piper plays on his pipe; and many others.If you're a fan of the unusual, and don't mind seeing something so completely different from Hollywood and Disney movies (which is not to say that there's nothing to appreciate in Hollywood/Disney movies), you really owe it to yourself to see this film. Watch the film clips that you can find on a Google search, and if you like what you see, just remember - there's a lot more of that in the full film, and those aren't even the best bits.One thing that I DISLIKED though was that the "Krysar" DVD came without a chapter select, which in my opinion is inexcusable for a film that's nearly an hour long. Still, the image and sound quality were very good. I guess life can't be perfect. ;)If you have any more questions about this film or the DVD, don't hesitate to send me a private message (you can do this by clicking on my name at the top of this review).

Timothy Damon Krysar (The Pied Piper) is a 55-minute film, almost all of it stop-motion animation. That's a total of 3,300 seconds, or 79,200 frames of film, each one a little different than the one before to give the illusion of motion. I've no idea how many person-hours of work went into this little gem, but it shows. The story line follows the fairy tale pretty much, except for the denouement. The sets look like they were made by the folks who did The Cabinet of Caligari and the people puppets have rather angular faces. A rather well-done film, although I found myself wondering if Czechoslovakia had a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - some of the rats in the moat didn't look too happy.

Petr Vavruch The rough puppets supposed to be Gothic and artistic are just plain ugly, unmatched and confusing. However, one must admit that they give the film, which as a whole is well put together, a special atmosphere making it striking and memorable.