The Adventures of Prince Achmed

Almost intriguingly convoluted and nonsensical blend of various stories from "One Thousand and One Nights" animated with Reiniger's formidable artistry. She really managed to develop a beautiful and captivating style of silhouette cinema that transforms all its technical and narrative limitations into unique dreamlike magic. In a weird way it taps into the essence of cinema and serves as a link to its prehistory in magic lantern shows, wayang kulit and various other ancient forms of shadowplay.

In the unlikely event that I ever have a child, I’ll make sure she sees no movies or videos before the age of four, and then spend six months or so just watching this movie, one act at a time, treating it as a kind of transitional object (in Winnicott’s sense) opening up the entire transitional space of cinema. The beautifully illustrated story is mostly about how, for girls, what matters is to be kidnapped, bought or otherwise captured by the kind of man one actually desires. Who could argue?

Reiniger's work is beautiful and impressive and she has a terrific imagination. But after a while the limitations of a silent movie with characters who are mostly expressionless became clear. It's hard to get emotionally invested and care about what happens. Still, a fascinating piece of cinema history.

Gorgeous? Absolutely. Important? No doubt. Charming? You bet. A bit of a drag at times? Well, yeah. But it's still a fun, engaging tale (if a generic, well-known one) done with beautiful visuals.

The story is definitely the film's weak point, lacking detail and motivation and I kind of stopped caring after a while since it was obvious how things would turn out anyway. The animation, on the other hand, is exquisite and more than enough reason to watch the film. The creativity, the attention to detail, the colourful backgrounds, they're all beautiful and keep you watching till the end.

First off this film looks beautiful. The lush background colours and cutout animation are both superb. After a while, when that loses it's charm, the film does seem to drag a bit. I suppose that's one of the limitations of silent cinema. Still, this is an essential piece of cinema history that all should see.

Its influence is perhaps incalculable, but for this viewer, this adaptation of Arabian Nights isn't quite as impressive as Zeman's take almost 50 years later, which had the advantage of superior technology at its creator's disposal. Nonetheless, it has greater mystique as it's impressive silhouette style resembles an ancient lantern show reflected on the surface of modernity, somehow forging an unholy alliance across vast time and space.

Gorgeous, but often tedious

This feels like a film made by Hittites or something. To be quite honest I hadn't a clue as to what the story was about, but so much enjoyed looking at the pictures.

I found this delightful. Holds up as well as anything I've ever seen from the period. This could be released now and would not seem out of place. I was occasionally reminded of Fantasia, but the most similar thing I've experienced to it is the 2018 video game GRIS, which has a pretty similar feel and aesthetic. I would be surprised if it wasn't inspired by it. The magic horse brought to mind The Thief of Bagdad. The story isn't amazing, but I don't think it's as bad as many others here say.

Now this is animation I like. Just pure images of beauty

Stunning visuals, but it’s a bit of a slog to get through.

Visually impressive enough to account for the lacks in storytelling. The proper restoration and the accompanying music are also a must to keep the interest going.

A work of absolute art; or more like 93600 works of art displayed in sequence. Story-wise it's more than a little flat, but Reiniger somehow gives each character enough expressions and body language to give it more depth than a lot of live-action silents manage.

Que desbunde! Baseado nos contos de As Mil e uma Noites (que tenho aqui na minha estande com tradução do Mamede Jarouche, mas nunca tive coragem de começar), não é só exautivo trabalho empregado pela minúscula equepe de produção da Reiniger que abunda aos nossos olhos, mas a beleza do que é feito com as silhuetas, em todo o seu ritmo e cadência das mais apropriadas. BlurayRip no MakingOff.

The animation is amazing, the music was well done, and the story was thrilling and well handled.

Primitive and clunky, but charming enough to keep you interested.

Looks really beautiful, but as you can imagine it treats the 'far-distant-lands' in a very othering way. I watched this film with a theatre full of children and a live band performing and I was wondering was this concidered a family movie in the 20s?

Wonderfully stylish and surprisingly expressive paper cutout animation. Reiniger's artful and meticulous work shines through to this day. The plot isn't much to speak of, though, and the best moments are in the first half, so interest may start to flag a ways into it. Still, the first extant feature-length animation is definitely a worthy representative of the medium.

While one can argue the animation is absolutely stunning (which I can see where you're coming from), the story is so painfully weak. It's tedious, all the characters are very uninteresting, and the story seems to be all over the place.

A lot more rapey than what I can remember from Alladin. The storey drags massively, to the point where I stopped watching 3/4 into it.

So beautiful.

sheer artistry! unfortunately, the story is horribly convoluted and boundlessly ridiculous, to an almost unforgivable degree. a shame, because it's a marvel to look at.

Stunningly gorgeous, yet the film drags a lot even at only just over an hour due to non-existent characterisations in a story that nowadays seems very by-the-numbers (and probably would have even back then).

As many others have already said, the animation is gorgeous but the story and the characters quite thin. Not great, but well worth a watch.

The technical achievement is impressive, and I really enjoyed the movie visually although it did get tiring after a while.

renkler, macera, estetik

Simply one of the most exquisite things I've ever seen on film. The story is forgettable, but this gets big points just for the work that went into it and the stunning beauty of it all.

Saw it with live music by Geoff Smith. Fantastic experience!

This is just classic. It may seem a bit rough by today's terms but its creative spirit still shines through, and it is full of mystique and quaint charm. Obviously an influence on the modern silhouette animation by such authors as Michel Ocelot and Anthony Lucas.

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