Hi everyone,

So to start off I want to talk about Hedgehog in the Fog.  I agree with Sadako that it was made mainly for entertainment and for children.  It has cute characters and a very simple plot.  I found it funny when the hedgehog called the owl a weirdo.  I also really liked the art style it was done in.  It was very different from the film The adventures of Prince Achmed (besides the different plots and there being humans instead of animals) even though it was made in fairly similar ways.  I was very curious on how they did the smoke effect so well and apparently they took a thin sheet of paper and then moved it closer and farther from the camera to give it the feeling of movement and depth.  I also learned that apparently there is a statue of the hedgehog in Ukraine.

Unlike Hedgehog in the Fog, Tale of Tales had very adult themes.  At first I did not really understand why the story jumped around a lot.  Some parts of it seemed like being in a dream but after doing research, it was meant to be like memories; very scattered but cohesive.  The goal of film was to show how destructive war is.  This was evident when the people were dancing and the men slowly fades away.  Also fire was a symbol for war.  This was show when the wolfs house burned down.  I really liked the music in the film because it really set the mood and tone of the film.  

Last but not least, Pied Piper of Hamelin.  I could definitely see the German expressionism.

As for the directors purpose for the film, the purpose was to not only express the time period and that people at that time period were not acting any better than rats.  This film was created during the Cold War.  I liked that the people did not speak but just made noises.  Also after doing research it was clever to have the design of the girl and the boatman to have a softer look to them.  The soft look of those two characters was to symbolize innocence.  I was very curious how Krysar made the rats look real.  Did he rig the rats like Starewicz did in The Cameraman's Revenge? 

Ultimately, I really enjoyed the movies especially when the humans turning into the rats.  The design of the slow morph was very clever and creepy.