Red-Barracuda This Wladyslaw Starewicz film must surely be one of the first examples of a festive movie. In it a Father Christmas ornament comes to life and descends a Christmas tree. He then travels to the forest and conjures up a little Christmas tree. Several insects and a frog are invited to approach the tree and celebrate the spirit of Christmas themselves.This animated feature recalls another Starewicz film, the insect based Cameraman's Revenge. It would be only fair to say that this one is not up to the standard of that bizarre classic though. It doesn't have the same level of surrealism and is less imaginative. It has a much sweeter message and is more clearly aimed at a family audience. That said this remains an extremely charming and well-crafted little flick. Its Christmas ambiance is very nice and it has warmth without being schmaltzy. The blue tint used gives it a certain winter fell too. These insect films by Starewicz really are something that every fan of animation should take time out to see.

ackstasis Wladyslaw Starewicz was the father of Russian animation, his highly-imaginative stop-motion insect short films drawing universal acclaim, with his most popular work probably being 'Mest kinematograficheskogo operatora / The Cameraman's Revenge' of 1912. 'Rozhdestvo obitatelei lesa / The Insects' Christmas' was produced the following year, and it is a cheery seven-minute animated Christmas film, emphasising the importance of the holiday as a time to get together and enjoy oneself. The film begins when Father Christmas suddenly awakens during the night of Christmas Eve and clambers down his decorated tree, exiting into the frosty holiday snow to hold a gathering for the "forest children."Starewicz draws on all his favourite stop-motion creatures in this one, with Father Christmas inviting Miss Dragonfly, a ladybug, a grasshopper and an assortment of other beetles and insects to his gathering around the Christmas tree. Even the lanky Mr. Frog gives Father Christmas the honour of his company, though it doesn't take long before Mr. Frog gets into a feud with a beetle over the ownership of a particularly large present. Nonetheless, the general purpose of the film is to promote kindness and togetherness on Christmas, and it's certainly a worthy moral, far removed from the darkly humorous and cynical outlook of 'The Cameraman's Revenge.'Particularly interesting, I thought, was how well 'The Insects' Christmas' was able to create the atmosphere of a bitter winter's night. Aside from the windswept, snowy background that Starewicz must have created, the film takes place entirely against a blue tint. The result is that, even just watching the film, with Father Christmas' robes billowing in the wind, I was starting to feel chilly. The quality of the stop-motion animation is as good as ever, with the insects almost moving naturally (despite walking upright), though Mr. Frog did appear a bit ungainly.

MartinHafer This Christmas film is nearly 100 years old, but it still bears watching today since it was so well-made originally and is awfully cute. The film begins with a Father Christmas ornament coming to life and climbing down the Christmas tree. It then makes its way outside to magically create a Christmas tree for the insects and a frog! All of this is done using excellent stop-motion filming and it is exceptionally smooth and high quality. The entire film is only about six minutes long but the pacing seems absolutely perfect.Oddly towards the end of the film, you see the words "Merry Christmas" above the bugs' Christmas tree but this is written in German. While the inter-title cards could easily be written is a variety of languages, this phrase was made on the film itself. Since it is apparently a Russian-made film, this just took me by surprise.

Snow Leopard This is a pleasant animated feature by the stop-action pioneer Wladyslaw Starewicz. It's not so remarkable when compared to his own finest movies, but in itself it is an agreeable and good-natured feature, and it is done with his usual skilled craftsmanship.The idea of the story is simple, with an animated Father Christmas ornament planning a Christmas celebration for some forest creatures. There isn't a lot in terms of a story line, but there is a good variety of Starewicz's detailed animal puppets, and some interesting settings. Overall, "The Insects' Christmas" is not as interesting as his best films, but it does feature the kind of carefully crafted animation that you would expect from him.