Karel Zeman was a Czech animator, creator of some of the most lavishly stylized Jules Verne-inspired fantasy films ever made. His mature movies combined live actors with cutout animation and eye-popping three dimensional sets that defy imagination, with geometries that would make Escher scratch his head. Although the three major films chronicled here all made it onto an international stage and were dubbed into English, this pioneer remains known today mainly to a small group of cult movie fans and animation nerds. The Criterion Collection sought to rectify that oversight in 2020 with a very cool box set of three of Zeman’s best and wildest fantasies, newly restored and with a host of extras—many courtesy of the Karel Zeman Museum in Prague (yes, he’s that big of a deal in the Czech Republic).

In Zeman’s playful spirit, the Blu-ray set comes in a fold-out package with pop-up art (a dinosaur, a balloon, and Baron Munchausen riding a cannonball). The DVD set costs a few bucks less and is more modestly packaged. Otherwise, the extra features are the same between the formats. Each includes a foldout Michael Atkinson essay that’s presented like a vintage newspaper or playbill. Although the Blu-ray packaging is both chic and retro, the three fantastic journeys are the star features.

Disc 1: 1955’s Journey to the Beginning of Time is the perfect introduction to Karel Zeman. It tells the story of four boys who take off downriver, traveling backwards through time as they row along, first encountering woolly mammoths, then dinosaurs. This is the kind of movie a Disney might have produced in America, full of wholesome adventure and a healthy dose of scientific facts to nourish growing minds. At times, it plays more like a trip to the natural history museum than a rousing adventure yarn; but the kid actors are surprisingly good, and the stop-motion animation is often the equal of (and sometimes better than) Zeman’s American counterpart, Ray Harryhausen. It’s unmistakably a kid’s movie, and more simplistic in craft than the director’s future features, but you can already tell a sure hand is on the rudder.

Like all the discs, the first includes a Czech trailer and a selection of short “museum documentaries” from the Karel Zeman Museum. The footage from these museum documentaries, which provide context for each film and reveal some of Zeman’s techniques, run about two to six minutes each, and will later be incorporated into disc 3’s full-length documentary. It’s handy to have the bits specific to the film you’re watching collected in one place, however. This section of the disc also presents a short before-and-after restoration Continue reading THREE FANTASTIC JOURNEYS BY KAREL ZEMAN →