Princes et Princesses

Princes & Princesses 1
Uploaded by sinziana2 - Arts and animation videos.

A good animation is always refreshing. And an animation is open to many different means of creation. Today we usually watch these grand, mostly CGI productions coming out of Disney or Pixar who are always entertaining and yet, not always exactly thought provoking. It is the little budget productions again, which are the most inspiring, and French Princes et Princesses is certainly one of them, not only for its visually stimulation silhouette technique but also for its naive fairytales.

The 2000 Princes et Princesses consists of six stories, by Michel Ocelot and is a continuation of three former animations shown French TV in 1992 as Les Contes de la Nuit. In this movie version, all six animations are presented as the scenarios created by a young girl, a young boy and an old man. They have computers to search for materials they need, they have brilliantly creative machines to prepare their costumes, and the girl and the boy are the actors of all six animations. The stories are of different centuries and of different cultures; from the ancient Egypt to Japanese traditions. The first one, La Princesse des Diamants is the story of a beautiful enchanted princess who stands still as a statue. The only way to free her is to find all the diamonds of her necklace which has fallen apart on the grass and then to remake the necklace, saving one diamond to be given to the dragon in front of the princess so that it lets one to pass, and all is to be done within the limited time of the sand glass she is holding. It is an original story by Ocelot.

The second one, an Egyptian tale, named Le Garçon des Figues, is the story of a young boy who lives on a fig tree. Each one morning, when one of the figs miraculously ripes, he takes the delicious fig to the queen as a gift and is awarded by her. However this awarding does not please a malicious royal steward, who would do anything to turn the whole thing upside down.

La Sorciere, the third story, is again an original story by Ocelot. It is set in Europe, in Medieval Age, and is about a princess to be saved from the fortress of an evil sorceress. Following that, we go to Japan, and the fourth story, named Le Manteau de la Vieille Dame, tells us the story of an old japanese lady and a thief who wants to steal her expensive coat. However, the old lady has tricks of her own, which will make the thief's plans harder.

La Reine Cruelle et Le Montreur de Fabulo is about a cruel queen living in the year 3000, who kills all the candidates lined up to marry her with her mega-radar. However, the owner of a strange whistling creature whose voice the queen loved a lot challenges her so that if she can't find and kill him in 24 hours, he will have the right to marry her. It is soon understood that the queen's cruelty only stems from her loneliness, and we are to find out whether he will win the challenge or not. The sixth and the last story, Prince et Princess, is set in a French rococo garden. A young prince and his love, a young princess exchange their words of love with each other and start kissing, only to find out that by each kiss, one of them will turn to a different animal. The question is, will they ever get back to normal, and when ?

The silhouette animation style of the movie is extremely simple and yet, charming, showing that for an animation to be impressive, a clever idea and an elegant style is more than enough. The stories are short and their subjects are timeless, familiar to any audience of any era. Watching this movie would be very well spent 60 minutes, which will change your whole idea about animations.