Strings

Another children’s film on general release is Strings an inventive but decidedly unusual historical drama depicted entirely by puppets – both wooden ones and ones made out of porcelain. Within the first few seconds, you’re transported to a dark shady world where figures move very cleverly by visible strings.

A powerful King the Emperor of Hebalon is up against arch-enemies the Zeriths, and when the Emperor dies a dramatic death early on, young Prince Hal (McAvoy) sets out to avenge his father’s death but whilst his ideas towards the Zeriths change, others are plotting to overthrow him and bring in a far more dramatic and violent approach towards their enemies. The question is – can Hal ensure that war doesn’t break out and discover who is plotting against him?

As a piece of film history, making a film entirely made up of marionettes is quite an undertaking and having such an impressive cast will help the director to attract an audience. It’s a tribute to Anders Ronnow Klarlund that the puppet characters really do come alive in the way that they do – the story is told with considerable ingenuity and also a little humour from a team fully in touch with their puppet world.

That said, there are times when you want this story to speed forward merely because it is a slightly ponderous puppet film quite apart from the world of children’s animation or real-life drama, and in that sense spending time in such a gloomy, plotting world of conspiracy, becomes something you yearn to get out of. Its not entirely easy to see who this film will appeal to too – I would suspect some adults might be bored by the visuals and some really young ones, scared by the malevolent world they’ve been asked to see – perhaps a little too dark for comfort, but well made all the same.

Matt Arnoldi