Tuesday's Overlooked Film: The Fabulous World of Jules Verne

I lured Kauto, my 6-year old son, to watch an ancient black & white Czech animation from an ancient VHS. To my surprise, Kauto watched the whole movie with me! It was Karel Zeman's Vynález zkázy from 1958, known in Finland as Salaisuuksien saari (The Island of Secrets) and in the English-speaking world as The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (or Invention for Destruction). It's the film version of one of Jules Verne's lesser-known novels, Face au drapeau AKA Facing the Flag (in Finland as Isänmaan lippu). Zeman is best known for his animation collage in which he uses live actors mixed with stop-motion animation and the original illustrations for Jules Verne's novels. It's very beautiful, as if the fictional world of Verne comes out alive on screen. As an adventure, The Fabulous World of Jules Verne is slow-moving, but it also contains lots of beauty. It's the beauty of a silent cinema, of something happening for the first time and the thrilling sensation we get out of it. Zeman is one of the great artists of cinema.

Here are the opening credits. Seems like you can watch the whole film on YouTube. (More overlooked films at Todd Mason's blog here.)