Une fée... pas comme les autres (1956) User Reviews

Outdated but remarkable effort

[franbelle10 · 7/10 · 22 July 2017]

Jean Tourane is known for the Saturnin series which enchanted the young French television audience in the late 60s. "Une fée... pas comme les autres" uses the same animation technique consisting in filming backyard animals (dukes, dogs, cats, ...) in a decor adapted to their size. Accompanied by an off-track commentary, these animals, worthy heirs of the Fables of Jean de la Fontaine, behave as perfect humans, sharing their behaviors, their moral qualities and their defects. The process gives a more animated result than the use of puppets, but at the detriment of the scenario which must be simplified so that the actors seem to do what the narrator suggests they are doing. Obviously, this animation technique is completely outdated today and it will be difficult to convince your children, except perhaps the youngest, to devote one hour of their time to it. Especially since the narration is of a grammatical and semantic level probably too high for the children of today ... In spite of everything, Jean Tourane shows a remarkable imagination, introducing into his script unusual animals such as frogs and herons. A small animation jewel that will interest today budding filmmakers. Those who knew how to keep a child's soul and who will rediscover the processes of animation and narration that are now lost.

Perfect, actually

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 16 August 2021]

Imagine a movie in which every single actor is an animal with all of the voices being done in post-production. Just sit back and let this wash over you, as Chassidou the cat loses the town's magic wand to the evil monkey known as Black Genie.

Black Genie takes Barbara the duck hostage, so Saturnin the duck and Chassidou ride a balloon to the Land of the Doves to attempt to discover how to defeat the wizard.

This played in the U. S. as The Secret of Animal Island. It had to decimate minds, because I've watched it so many times and it continually amuses and enthralls me while making me wonder just how did this get filmed and how hard was it to make?

Director Jean Tourane also made a Saturnin TV series and another movie with the heroic duck that's called Saturnin et le Vaca-Vaca.

Do you want to see a fox shampoo a chicken? A frog do a motorcycle stunt? A rabbit smoke a cigarette? Of course you do.

This movie saddened me

[Twinlet · 3/10 · 6 September 2020]

They way these poor animals were used, you can see some of them were tied down or attached in place for some of the scenes.