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