The movie is based on one of Jules Vernes' many voyages extraordinaire. As such, it is not a brilliantly crafted work of writing. It's the basis for every Frank Reade dime novel that appeared in the series' long run. The story is, in a word, silly.
The extraordinary beauty of this film is purely visual. The characters, written as thin as stick figures, are played by actors who move in an animated world; not the cartoon world we are accustomed to, or the world of anime, but the world of book illustration, of steel engravings. These backdrops and set pieces, and even the ocean waves edited through a filter, are designed with intimate detail. They offer us a look at an alternatiive cinema, one in which the grammar begun by George A. Smith, formalized by D.W. Griffith, and elaborated on by tens of thousands of technicians and artists over the past century never existed.
It's a Georges Melies type of cinema, a grammar that vanished in 1914, although bits and pieces remain in film grammar, like trilobite fossils revealed in marble used to face public buildings. Its sensibilities are entirely distinct. It's an amazing, fascinating piece of work.
The extraordinary beauty of this film is purely visual. The characters, written as thin as stick figures, are played by actors who move in an animated world; not the cartoon world we are accustomed to, or the world of anime, but the world of book illustration, of steel engravings. These backdrops and set pieces, and even the ocean waves edited through a filter, are designed with intimate detail. They offer us a look at an alternatiive cinema, one in which the grammar begun by George A. Smith, formalized by D.W. Griffith, and elaborated on by tens of thousands of technicians and artists over the past century never existed.
It's a Georges Melies type of cinema, a grammar that vanished in 1914, although bits and pieces remain in film grammar, like trilobite fossils revealed in marble used to face public buildings. Its sensibilities are entirely distinct. It's an amazing, fascinating piece of work.