Le Rossignol de l'empereur de Chine

I was lucky enough to be able to rent this obscure gem last week, and I was highly impressed with the image quality, the gorgeous color tones, and the story. The animation is purely wonderful, very fluid and realistic. I don't mind Karloff's narration, I feel it brought another level of enjoyment to the story. The tale is simple, yet profound. It starts with a young boy being held prisoner by the expectations of his family and the customs of the day. The constant restrictions eventually make the boy quite ill, and during his fever, he dreams of a boy-king in China who is also a prisoner of custom and routine. This king has never been allowed to touch anything real in his whole life. Everything is created for him, even the flowers of his garden are only glass. Both the king and the sad boy learn a great lesson from a small ordinary bird. I won't give it away, you'll just have to watch it! This is a great movie for everyone who loves stories, animation, or just great art. You won't be disappointed in this one.

Jiøí Trnka's best-known animation feature is an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's tale "The Emperor's Nightingale." More than a dazzling illustration of the story, it is a remarkable example of Trnka's favor for design in sets and costumes, a work he also did for other directors in the Czech film industry. Unfortunately, the story relies too much on narration (provided by Boris Karloff in the American version) as in Jan Švankmajer's "Alice", but while Švankmajer stylish approach to Lewis Carroll's bizarre tale makes up for the narrated option, in Trnka's case the designs do not compensate for Andersen's rather simple story of the value of finding beauty in the simplest things.

"The Emperor's Nightingale" is a Czechoslovakian film by Jirí Trnka and Milos Makovec. Apparently, some folks thought it merited a translation to English so that it could be sold abroad...and so they had Boris Karloff narrate the film and the characters themselves don't talk.

The film is a stop-motion picture and I marvel at both how long it took to make this as well as the quality. It is a nice looking film AND Karloff's narration is lovely. That being said, it's also very, very slow and is the sort of film that would make even the most well behaved child run about screaming out of boredom. Had they trimmed the film a bit, it would have worked better. It also would have worked better with an infusion of fun...which is sorely lacks.

An eloquent narration from Boris Karloff and Jiri Trnka's cute puppets can do little to overcome the turgid pace of this adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's story.

'The Emperor and the Nightingale' is a lovely story, if not one of my favourites. Other Hans Christian Andersen stories have connected with me more, 'The Ugly Duckling' for example is very relatable for anybody who found and/or still finds it difficult to fit in. While 'The Emperor and the Nightingale's' story is quite slight it is charming and quite moving in the latter stages and it lends itself well to animation. Have seen my fair share of Czech films and many are worth watching.

Jiri Trnka's 'The Emperor's Nightingale' was my introduction to his work and is one of his best known. Perhaps even his best known. Having seen some of his other films, with a standout being 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (review to come shortly), being someone who has seen some note-worthy Czech films and who loves stop motion/puppet animation, Trnka is definitely someone whose work is worth checking out. There are better films of his than 'The Emperor's Nightingale', to me it is actually a lesser effort of his, but on the most part it's a lovely film.

What immediately stands out is the way 'The Emperor's Nightingale' looks, especially the astonishing photography. The scenery enchants in colour and atmosphere and the way the characters look and move is beautifully detailed and not stiff or too complicated. Particularly the nightingale. The music has presence but is not bombastic, and it doesn't feature too much or feel too discordant with the simple atmosphere.

Furthermore, the writing tells the story simply yet honestly in a way that's not hard to understand. The story is a long way from perfect in execution, but has a good deal of charm, a surprising surrealistic atmosphere at times and it is moving later on. Both titular characters are believably characterised and rootable, neither lacking personality and the nightingale is quite cute. Boris Karloff's narration is typically eloquent and authoritative.

However, do have to agree that the pacing is too creaky and slow. The original story is just too slight to lend itself to an hour and a quarter and it would have been better as a 30 minute short film. While the emotional impact of the story is still there the pacing could have been more tighter.

Something that could have been achieved if there was less of a reliance on the narration. Although delivered beautifully and with no complaints, one could very rarely go wrong with Karloff, it did feel that some of it was padding the length out. The middle act in particular is over-stretched.

Definitely worth watching but falls short of greatness. 7/10.