The guys at Second Run DVD sent me Jiří Trnka: Puppet Master, a two-disc Blu-ray set containing Old Czech Legends, The Czech Year and 90 minutes of extras, superb examples of this master of animation’s work and a great place to start for any beginner.
Trnka worked in various forms but stop-motion puppetry is what he’s most famous for. Old Czech Legends delivers that in spades. It’s a retelling of the ancient history of the Czech people and how they came to occupy the land they now call home.
Things get off to a portentous start with the death of Čech, tribal leader and the man who gave the Czechs their name – orchestras, choirs and strong male voices sing him to his grave, while striking male and female figures, puppets as if lensed by Leni Riefenstahl, emphasise the strong good looks of these proto-Czechs living in a state of nature.
Hold on to those fine features because Trnka’s style in this film is generally more gloomy. Within minutes the dark skies have closed in and crows are cawing on shattered tree stumps as Trnka tracks the Czechs up and down through ancient history.
Moses to Jesus is the never-quite-stated shadow story and scholars of the Bible will find all sorts of echoes of the story of the chosen people – the Czechs, in Trnka’s telling – as they stake a quasi-mystical claim to an empty part of old Europe and reinforce it more practically by clearing the forests, slaying wild beasts and tangling with mythological creatures.
At one point a female accidentally, it seems, assumes leadership of the Czechs. Libuse, as she’s called, is soon told by an oracle that tribal leadership isn’t really for women – men don’t like it when a woman’s in charge, she’s informed – and so to keep the peace Libuse abdicates. There you have it – order restored and a naked bit of patriarchal mythologising.
Trnka’s puppets are carved from wood and have fixed facial expressions. To convey emotion, Trnka uses light and movement. This makes him obviously different from another wizard of Czech animation, Jan Svankmajer, who is a generation younger than Trnka, though Zeman’s wild leaps of imagination and mastery of technique clearly left their mark on the younger man. The scene where an entire roomful of people are dancing, for instance, how long did that take? What level of planning must it have required? Was it done with storyboards and if so how many must there have been?
Trnka is not just a technical whizz. His film’s looks are remarkable too. The lighting is precise and shadow is used carefully to conjure mood. His puppets are lit like people on a film set, and his camera regularly takes a subjective turn – Nick Park is clearly a fan, even if, when it comes to expressive features, Park is obviously the anti-Trnka.
On the other disc in the set, The Czech Year is not as technically accomplished (it was made six years earlier than Old Czech Legends in 1947). Trnka’s debut, it’s a Grimm-flavoured tour through the seasons light in tone and more obviously aimed at children.
For your money you also get a very useful A Beginner’s Guide to Jiři Trnka and A Beginner’s Guide to Czech Animation, a series of shorts made in 1947 and the usual authoritative Second Run essay (two in fact, one from Peter Hames, the other from Jonathan Owen, both experts in Central and Eastern European cinema).
There you have it. In spite of the tiny font size of the essay in the printed booklet, a great little package, with the added advantage that the films are both sourced from the 4K restoration done by the Czech Archive in 2015.
While writing this, another Czech animator’s name sprang into my mind. Didn’t Second Run also send me Karel Zeman’s The Fabulous Baron Munchausen some time ago – scurries off to a back room and, yes, there it is. It is exactly the sort of film they major in – “rare and important classic and contemporary films from around the world”, is how they put it, though Iron Curtain stuff is clearly a specialty. I’ve had this Munchausen for nine years, it seems. Oops. Now that Trnka has reminded me how powerful stop motion can be, coming soon, one Zeman review.
Jiři Trnka: Puppet Master (includes Old Czech Legends) – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
I am an Amazon affiliate
© Steve Morrissey 2026
