Cartoon drama debuts after decade in the making

Take note – story published 9 years ago

The long-awaited animated feature film treatment of Rainis’ literary folk drama Zelta zirgs (The Golden Horse) premiered Wednesday at the National Library (LNB) building.

The cartoon adaptation of Rainis’ play was conceived ten years ago and involved the coordination of teams of animators from several European nations, making it a true large-scale joint-production amongst many creative collaborators. Besides Latvia’s animation studio Rija, teams from studios in Lithuania, Luxembourg and Denmark worked on the film, based on original scenography by French comic artist and director Sylvain Chomet. Chomet is the author of Oscar-nominated 2003 cartoon film The Triplets of Belleville, which included Riga-based Rija among the dedicated artistic teams that drew the frames.  

The film’s director Reinis Kalnaellis of Rija told LTV morning news program Rīta Panorāma that the film stands out in that all the frames are hand-drawn by world-class talents in the field. He also singled out Luxembourg’s composer Anselm Pau and sound designer Angelo Dos Santos for their outstanding work in vividly conjuring the contrasting apocalyptic and cheerful atmospheres in the movie.

“One second contains 25 drawings. You can draw 8 in one day. Altogether there are more than 120,000 drawings. With that I wish to say that’s why it’s such a large team working for so long a time. We’ve also been very demanding as to stylistic characterizations – they’re very humanized, making the animator’s work all the more complicated,” he said.

As for the cooperation amongst teams from different nations, Kalnaellis said it was a good experience for all, adding that the final year was spent enhancing the hand-drawn frames and visual compositions with technologically-mediated special effects.

The Golden Horse in a nutshell follows the story of Antiņš, the pure-hearted youngest of three sons who quests to wake the princess Saulcerīte from the glass mountain summit where she has slept in a spell for seven years. The motifs of battle between good and evil, the power of courage and love are universal, so the film promises to be graspable to those otherwise unfamiliar with this legendary work by one of Latvia’s key national literary and political founding fathers.

The LNB building is partly conceived by US-based Latvian architect Gunnar Birkerts as a symbolic amalgam of literary themes, including the Glass Mountain which figures in Rainis’ play, besides its more commonly invoked nickname – the Castle of Light.

Following its premiere before a children’s audience at the LNB building, The Golden Horse opens in theatres throughout Latvia. The film has also received €6000 for special screenings at schools outside of Riga, including discussions with the authors. Due to its joint-production status, it will see commercial release at theatres in Luxembourg, Lithuania and Denmark as well.

Interview with Reinis Kalnaellis (in Latvian)

 

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