German silhouette film meets Indonesian 'wayang'

German silhouette film meets Indonesian 'wayang'

Zora Rahman, Contributor, Jakarta

The first feature-length animation ever created was not Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs, nor was it done by Walt Disney, which
are probably two of the most common misconceptions in film
history.

It was The Adventures of Prince Achmed, an artistic silhouette
film done by a 26-year-old German woman, but it is unlikely the
truth will ever become as accepted as the error.

However, it was not the fact that Lotte Reiniger from Berlin
was the world's pioneer in animation features that motivated the
cultural program team at the Goethe-Institut in Jakarta to
conceive a project with her silhouette films, but rather her
astonishing technique of staging shadow plays.

"When I saw Lotte's film for the first time, I was immediately
reminded of wayang kulit (shadow puppet performance)," project
manager Lisa said. "The only thing missing was the traditional
gamelan music."

Out of this simple idea came a very remarkable intercultural
experiment: having an old German silhouette film with
surprisingly modern ideas and techniques interpreted by a
contemporary but traditional dalang (puppet master) and gamelan
orchestra from Indonesia. It was a project completely in line
with Goethe-Institut's intercultural mission.

The characters for The Adventures of Prince Achmed have in
fact been inspired by Chinese shadow plays.

Filmmaker Lotte Reiniger started cutting her own silhouette
puppets during her childhood without ever having seen an Asian
wayang performance. At the age of 15, she attended a movie
special effects lecture by director Paul Wegener, who later
introduced her to other young people doing scientific and
experimental films.

She was not only a perfectionist in creating storylines, but
also in producing her characters. For complex movements, they had
to be built from 25 to 50 pieces, all joined together with fine
lead wire. Reiniger was able to cut silhouettes unbelievably fast
by holding the scissors almost motionless in her right hand, and
turning the paper with her left hand always in the right
direction.

When Reiniger finished her first 90-minute feature in 1926 --
more than a decade before the premiere of Disney's Snow White in
1937 -- she had produced more than a dozen silhouette short
films.

She did not stop working with silhouettes until her death in
1981. She was also very productive during the 1930s and 1940s,
even though she had to move from one country to another to escape
the Nazi regime who had put her on the black list because of her
friendship with Bertolt Brecht.

As most of her films were inspired by fairy tales and legends,
the story of Prince Achmed was mainly based on the tales of A
Thousand and One Nights, though it contains some experimental,
semi-abstract sequences as well. Although it is a silent, black-
and-white movie, the film cultivated a very colorful and
thrilling story. The American film historian William Moritz
noted: "This is a brilliant feature, a wonderful film full of
charming comedy, lyrical romance, vigorous and exciting battles,
eerie magic and truly sinister, frightening evil".

Some scenes seemed astonishing vivid as Reiniger had designed
an early form of multi-plane camera, which gives a 3D-effect by
separating foregrounds and backgrounds into different layers.

The original symphony soundtrack was by Wolfgang Zeller, one
of the great film composers of his time, but it was later
replaced with the kitschy music of Freddie Phillips on several
copies. To let Prince Achmed meet the Indonesian wayang, all
background sound had to be replaced with gamelan music and the
voice of the narrating dalang.

A lucky stroke for the Goethe-Institut's project came when
Wangi Indriya Taham expressed her interest to participate in the
project. The woman dalang from Indramayu, West Java, was very
impressed with Reiniger's work, since she saw several of her
films.

"I was afraid to play along to these films, because it was
something I had never heard of before. Other artists even made
fun of me when they heard that I was going to be a dalang for
cartoons," Wangi said.

The most difficult challenge for the dalang and her
accompanying gamelan orchestra from Sanggar Mulya Bhakti
(Jatibarang/Indramayu) was the unusual speed of the performance.

"In the wayang, I can control the tempo of my puppets, their
gestures and what they say," Wangi said. "But this time there is
a film, ready-made artwork -- and I have to reinterpret it in
such a way that the music and my narration will match the film."

Nevertheless, the dalang and orchestra managed to find the
music to match the scenes and a corresponding narration, after
watching the film over and over, integrating the dynamic sound of
the music with the pictures and the narration.

The first performances in Jakarta in May 2002 received an
enthusiastic response from the audience, with the afternoon
session for the children enjoying it as much as the evening show
for adults. Indonesians liked it as much as foreign guests, who
were not used to wayang. A team is making a documentary about the
entire project and the program has been proposed for an
invitation to Germany.

I-BOX:

Due to popular demand, Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince
Achmed will be screened again on Dec. 20, 2002 at 5 p.m. at
Goethe Haus, Jl. Sam Ratulangi 9-15, Menteng, Central Jakarta
(free admission).
For further information call 021- 23550208