Produced by Comenius-Film GmbH
The caliph is holding a celebration and people from all over have come with wonders never seen in order to win the ruler's favor. There is one item the caliph sees that he simply must have: a flying horse presented by an African sorcerer. The caliph offers gold and the sorcerer refuses. The magician says he wants something else and the king quickly decrees he can have anything as trade for the horse.
What the magician wants is the caliph's daughter Dinarsade. Her brother Prince Achmed comes to her defense and the sorcerer apparently gives up. He offers to show the prince how to fly the horse and off Achmed goes. Unfortunately, he never shows Achmed how to land the horse so up, up and away goes our title character.
Achmed eventually figures out there is a lever by the tail to descend and lands on Wak Wak island, the home of the beautiful Princess Peri Banu. Our hero is smitten and takes her away with the Wak Wak spirits in pursuit.
The prince must save the princess and defeat the sorcerer. His quest will take him to China. He'll battle snakes and bats and demons. He'll meet Aladdin and the Fire Mountain Witch along the way. But will he find love and vengeance? Or death?
Here we have The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the oldest surviving, feature length, color animated film. Usually, in my film review, this is where I talk about characters and plot and scenes. We'll forgo that for the most part and focus on one aspect: the experience.
First, let me explain the animation. This is not hand-drawn cel animation or CGI (obviously). It's cut out animation. The creator took thousands of cardboard cut out figures and filmed them, moving them one frame at a time. The aesthetic is akin to watching South Park if the characters were composed entirely of black cardboard.
Except in Prince Achmed it's incredibly more detailed. Your watching a movie narrative, but your mind keeps marveling at the effort and skill that must have been required to make water shimmer or creatures transform.
Your assumption going in is that these flat silhouettes without the benefit of detailed faces would fail to captivate. But the mind is a funny thing. It fills in the gaps that are not on the screen. The shadowy versions of the figures become blank slates for your brain to draw on. And your imagination provides smiles and scowls that aren't really there.
There is also a hypnotic effect to the animation style. It flows over you in a way that animation can but rarely does. It's gorgeous to look at.
That's not to say it's perfect. The animation often has a fluidity that is breathtaking, but there are also moments where the frame-to-frame transitions become jittery. Not unexpected for its time but the transitions between smooth and staccato animation are noticeable because they so often are juxtaposed against each other.
I could critique the story and characterization, but that never seems to be the point of The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Simply put it on and let it wash over you.
**** out of *****
NOTE: I think most people assume Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) was the first feature length animated film. Obviously, that is not the case. Beyond that though, Prince Achmed itself was pre-dated by The Apostle (1917) and Without a Trace (1918). Both of those are lost films so The Adventures of Prince Achmed gets the slightly awkward to say "oldest surviving animated feature-length" crown.
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