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Magic Canvas

October 16, 2013 in ★★★★, European films, Films by female artists, Halas & Batchelor, United Kingdom | Tags: 1948, avant-garde, Halas & Batchelor, John Halas, Joy Batchelor, Magic Canvas, Mátyás Seiber, surrealism | Leave a comment

Directors: John Halas & Joy Batchelor
Release Date: 1948
Rating: ★★★★
Review:

‘Magic Canvas’ is rather pretentiously introduced as “something different (….), new and exciting”.

Luckily, the film is rather original and exciting: using a rather abstract score by Hungarian composer Mátyás Seiber, it consists of associative images with a strong sense of surrealism. It loosely tells the story of man struggling to be free. Even though it has to pay its debts to Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ (1940), ‘The Magic Canvas’ surely is one of the most avant-gardistic films of its time, and a testimony of Halas & Batchelor’s animation ambitions.

Watch ‘Magic Canvas’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘Magic Canvas’ is available on the DVD inside the book ‘Halas & Batchelor Cartoons’

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