Prince et Princesse

The short paper cutout animation Prince et Princesse stood out to me a lot when we watched it among other short films. I took four years of French in high school (in hopes I would get out of it in college!) and so I thought it was really cool to see a piece that was originally French. In high school French class all we ever saw was French dubbed over American animated features. The only other French original piece I've ever seen was Ernest and Celestine, which is an equally entertaining (if not more entertaining) film. In short: I love the fluidity of animating French lip-sync.

That's not the only reason Prince et Princesse stood out to me. I've always been a HUGE fan of mock fairy tales: The Princess and The Frog, Hoodwinked, 1001 Rabbit Tales by Looney Tunes, Shrek. The best part about all of these films is that these movies are comedies AND fairy tales. They mock fairy tales in the beginning by tweaking the fairy tales in comedic ways, but in the end the story itself was a fairy tale all along. The story itself makes fun of a fairy tale, but the viewer finds itself with the same warm, familiar feeling of 'happily ever after' as the credits slowly roll.

I adore this style. It may actually be cliche now, but I have always enjoyed the way the fairy tales get flipped upside down in those movies.