Customer Reviews
so far so excellent, i'd recommend raising kids with this - By: Mr. M. L. Pearce, 11 Aug 2008 
this film has done a fantastic job, i'd rather raise the kids on this than on Disney's Alladin, so what it's scaryin parts butin all honesty Disney just faffs about with having to put rubbish humour all over the large sum of his films; whilst this & the stuff of Tekuza (the japanese equivalent of Disney & 'Father of Anime') just gets on with it.
Creating fairyland with scissors , paper and camera - By: Linda Howell, 23 Jul 2007 The only example of Lotte Reiniger's exquisite art at present available, it is difficult to convey the magic & beauty of this film. Animated sillhouettes show an enchanting story . Whilst beautiful, it is not the best example of her work. Tantalising morsels are shownin the excellent 'extra' which shows the staggering talent behind these cut-out scenes & players. Where are all those delightful short fairy stories which first enchanted me on Children's Televisionin the 1950s ? Please bring them together & release them to us soon.
An entertainment of shadows - By: Kentish Sir Byng, 29 Apr 2004 Lotte Reiniger made this enchanting film with a small team, frame by painstaking frame. The characters & scenery remain shadows against tinted backgrounds - it plays like the dream shadow-theatre that you could never have actually made yourself. The stories, adapted from the Arabian Nights, are exciting & absorbing as well for young children, a little tiresome for adults, though Jean Renoir called this 'a masterpiece'. On this DVD we also get a well-made & thoughtful documentary on Reiniger which outlines her biography, has interviews with relatives & experts, & - best of all - contains many beautiful clips from her other shadow films which I hope will be released soon.
A defining example of the unique art of animation. - By: P Farquharson, 14 Oct 2001 
The Adventures of Prince Achmed by Berlin avant-gardist Lotte Reiniger was one of the world's first feature-length animated films & premièredin 1926 (with Fritz Langin the audience!). Employing her unsurpassed silhouette techniques, Reiniger hand-cut & crafted each individual imagein this story based on The Arabian Nights. Assisted by husband producer/photographer Carl Koch & fellow animators Berthold Bartosch & Walter Ruttmann, the film took a painstaking 3 years & 300,000 camera shots to complete.
Sadly, much of Reiniger's unique work, including the original negative of this film, was destroyedin Berlin at the end of World War II. However, a nitrate positive had been preservedin the archives of the BFI (British Film Insitute) and,in 1999, 100 years after the birth of Reiniger, new prints were made from it & the original film restored. Fortunately too, Wolfgang Zeller's original music score had been preservedin the Library of Congress, Washington.
To this day it remains timeless, classic, sophisticated, poetic, delicate, magical... a defining example of the unique art of animation.
Watch it with incense! - By: Dennis E. Sisterson, 23 Aug 2001 This is a remarkable film; madein 1926 by a handful of people under the direction of Lotte Reiniger, ten years before Disney's 'Snow White', this is the first animated feature film stillin existence - & we can count ourselves lucky, since the original negatives were all lostin the war. Toldin lovingly crafted silhouetted, with a first-class orchestral score, this is an engaging, magical adventure with echoes of the Arabian Nights & Chinese shadow theatre - modern kids might find it heavy going but the childin the rest of us should love it if we give it a chance. Beautiful & atmospheric, with a finely told dramatic story, this is a delightful film & the BFI have done a superb jobin rescuing it from the archives & restoring it. Turn the lights down, take the phone off the hook, light some joss sticks & enjoy something quite unique.
