A festival poster from 2022. Zeman’s films are popular in Japan.
Last week’s post about Czech film-maker Karel Zeman prompted me to see whether any more of his feature films have become available on disc. The international success of Zeman’s semi-animated adventures led to the production of more films along similar lines, although not all of these are as fantastic (or as popular) as Invention for Destruction or Baron Munchausen. A Jester’s Tale, for example, is a historical drama, albeit one which still makes use of Zeman’s skill with animation and special effects. The Karel Zeman Museum in Prague has been slowly restoring and reissuing the director’s features on DVD and blu-ray discs, the most recent title being The Stolen Airship, another film based on Jules Verne’s novels which I’m looking forward to seeing. The museum has also been increasing its production of spin-off products, including poster prints which include a couple of designs I hadn’t seen before. Browsing the poster sites revealed a few more attractive designs for international releases.
The Treasure of Bird Island (1953)
Czech, 1953. Art by Jindřich Cech.
I still haven’t seen Zeman’s first two features. The Treasure of Bird Island is wholly animated story based on a Persian fairy tale.
Journey to Prehistory (1955)
Poland, 1955. Art by Jan Młodożeniec.
Zeman’s second feature is his first film to mix live action and animation, with a story about a group of boys whose journey down a river leads to an encounter with prehistoric creatures. I like the way this poster reduces the narrative to its basic elements while also looking like a design for a Godzilla-themed postage stamp.
Invention for Destruction (1958)
Czech, 1958. Art by Karel Knechtl.
A film I’ve enthused about before, and an ideal place to start with Zeman’s fantasies.
Poland, 1958. Art by Jan Lenica.
“That looks like a Jan Lenica design,” I thought, and so it is. The human-headed fish vehicle has little to do with Zeman’s film but a character like this wouldn’t be out of place in one of Lenica’s own animations, especially Labirynt.
Hungary, 1958. Art by Gabriela Hajnalova.
France, 1961. Art by Roger Soubie.
The French, unsurprisingly, give a prominent credit to the author whose novels inspired the film.
Japan, 2004.
The Japanese produced a number of vivid collage posters for Zeman’s films in 2004. The best ones are this and the one for Baron Munchausen.
Baron Munchausen (1962)
Czech, 1962. Art by Josef Flejšar.
Zeman’s other great fantasy feature, and another good one start with. It’s also probably the best Baron Munchausen film (not that I’ve seen them all), having the requisite lightness of tone while also looking like a succession of engraved illustrations brought to life.
Poland, 1962. Art by Franciszek Starowieyski.
A typically inventive composition by Starowieyski which gives the Arcimboldo treatment to an arrangement of Munchausen-related objects including the Baron’s horse and the Baron himself. Those tiny white marks look like print errors or jpeg artefacts but I think they’re supposed to be labels fixed to all the different objects.
Japan, 2004.
A Jester’s Tale (1964)
Czech, 1964. Art by Jiří Hilmar.
Poland, 1966. Art by Franciszek Starowieyski.
The Stolen Airship (1967)
The Stolen Airship, 1967. Czech design by Zdeněk Ziegler.
A pair of impressive designs by one of the best Czech poster designers.
Czech, 1967. Art by Zdeněk Ziegler.
Poland, 1967. Art by Andrzej Krajewski.
On the Comet (1970)
Czech, 1970. Art by Zdeněk Ziegler.
Another pair of Ziegler designs for the last of Zeman’s Verne-derived adventures. This was also the last of his big feature films, after which he returned to producing animated stories for children.
Czech, 1970. Art by Zdeněk Ziegler.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Inspiration, a film by Karel Zeman
• Zemania
Criterion Collection has a nice affordable boxed set that contains Journey, Invention and Baron Munchausen. The set is stuffed full of goodies – early films (including Inspiration), the dubbed and edited American releases which I saw as a kid, and a couple documentaries produced by the KZ museum. CC has licenses for North America only so Region A I’m afraid.
Yes, I’ve seen that set, they designed a nice imitation of the Hetzel editions of Jules Verne for the package. Second Run have done all those films on BD for the UK so I expect that’s why the Criterion set is region-restricted. Second Run also do a DVD of A Jester’s Tale.