The 1986 Czech stop-motion animation The Man Who Played the Flute was adapted by Czech director Jik Bata from Grimm's fairy tale The Piper. The level of Czech animation has always been high, and its area of expertise is puppet animation. The Man Who Played the Flute is a gothic cartoon with a spooky mix of puppets, metal, oil paintings and even real mouse images.
The story takes place in a city of eerie and repressive Gothic architecture. In the city, on the ground lives a group of hopeless people who have gathered the seven deadly sins of arrogance, jealousy, rage, laziness, greed, gluttony, and lust.
Underground live a group of rats with similar characteristics to city dwellers.
In the animation, the residents are made of puppets and metal, the lines are rigid and exaggerated, and the facial features and posture of the characters are distorted and terrifying, presenting a terrifying image that resembles a human being.
Rat-like city dwellers are overwhelmed by real rats.
At this moment, a man in a cloak with a strong appearance, with his own rock and roll background music, came out like a superman to rescue the residents who were plagued by rat infestations.
The man took the reward list for expelling the rats, used the flute as a weapon, and played a demagogic song, so that the rats lined up to the river as if hypnotized, and drowned in the river.
The man saves the rat infestation and the hero saves the beauty, and wins the love of the only beautiful and pure girl in the city.
The piper, who could have had a double harvest of wealth and beauty, ended up encountering shameless officials and brutal soldiers without credibility, and finally everything was lost!
The angry man comes to the highest part of the city, and he wants revenge! Amid the stirring rock music, he blew his flute as the sun rose, causing the city dwellers who were as evil as rats to line up and walk into the river, drowning like rats...
The superhuman Piper can't save the Old World after all, but the ability to destroy it is still there.
Destruction is rebirth. The piper whisked his clothes away afterwards. The airborne Superman helped destroy the Old World, and the task of building the New World ultimately required locals to complete it. In the empty city, the kind fisherman picked up the only newborn and walked out of the city. Flowers bloom outside the city, and there is a new atmosphere.
The animation uses symbols, analogies, etc., to compare the eerie image of the city dwellers full of evil to rats, the beautiful girl to symbolize the beautiful things, the man who plays the flute to destroy the evil and save the city with violence, and the kind fisherman and newborn to symbolize the hope of the city.
Looking at the time, animation was born in 1986, and if you think about the history of the Czech Republic and many Eastern European countries a few years later, the political implications of animation are self-evident.
In one fell swoop, a country that has been reborn and corrupted has won a new life?!
Relying on external forces, hoping that the arrival of Superman can really save the country?! This so-called "superman" will not go away like the piper, and will not take away a cloud!
With a new generation of children, you can get rid of the vices and sins of your parents and usher in a new life?!
Reality and history have finally slapped the artist's fantasy in the face.
The magic fairy tale thought that it had entered the adult world, but its core was more childish, but it lost the beauty of the fairy tale.
(Text/Qin Shi Xiaoge at 12:49 on December 8, 2021)
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