Old Friends, New Friends - The Adventures of Prince Achmed

Welcome back Dear Readers.

For this weeks edition of

Old Friends, New Friends

we go back to

a simpler time,

when the pyrotechnics

necessary to create stunning animation

consisted of many

beautiful, and intricate

stencils.

Ornate cut outs that reminded me

of Balinese Shadow Puppets.

All of this is combined with

a fantastic story

and

an exotic and colourful score

that brought

 to mind

the music of

Aram Khachaturian.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed watching

The Adventures of Prince Achmed.

I was swept off

to a faraway land.

You'll be too!

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (German: Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed) (Arabic: مغامرات الامير احمد‎) is a 1926 feature-length animated film by the German animator Lotte Reiniger. It is the oldest surviving animated feature film (two earlier ones were made in Argentina by Quirino Cristiani, but they are considered lost^[1]), and it featured a silhouette animation technique Reiniger had invented which involved manipulated cutouts made from cardboard and thin sheets of lead under a camera. The technique she used for the camera is similar to Wayang shadow puppets (though hers were animated frame by frame, not manipulated in live action). The original prints featured color tinting. The story is based on the elements taken from the collection 1001 Arabian Nights, specifically The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanoufeatured in Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book. With the assistance of Aladdin, the Witch of the Fiery Mountain, and a magic horse, the title character battles the evil African sorcerer to win the hand of Princess Pari Banou.

(Synopsis from Wikipedia)