Tales of the Night – review

This charming picture by Michel Ocelot, one of France's leading animators, tells five love stories featuring princesses, handsome commoners and wise old men in a variety of exotic settings. Stylistically Ocelot draws on the innovative silhouette films Lotte Reiniger made in Germany and then in her long British exile from the 1920s to the 1970s, as well as on oriental shadow puppetry. It should please sensitive, well-brought-up children and nostalgists. The 3D is well suited to the film's theatrical flatness in depth.