The Pied Piper and Jiri Barta Shorts [Blu-ray]

The Pied Piper Jiri Barta Shorts Blu-ray presents Jiří Barta’s nightmarish stop-motion masterpiece alongside a definitive collection of his short films, restored and curated as a landmark release in Czech animation. Inspired by the legend of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Barta’s feature unfolds in a grotesque medieval town populated by warped, money-obsessed citizens carved from wood, speaking in guttural sounds and literally vomiting coins instead of words.

Set against narrow streets, towering Gothic arches, and shadow-soaked interiors, The Pied Piper reimagines the fable as a bleak moral parable, where corruption festers above ground while the rats — rendered with uncanny realism using fur and whiskers — burrow below. Expressionist in tone and deeply unsettling in imagery, the film recalls the distorted worlds of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, Jan Švankmajer, and the Brothers Quay, yet remains unmistakably Barta’s own.

This deluxe two-disc edition expands the experience with seven essential Jiří Barta short films, tracing the evolution of his singular style across more than a decade. From surreal allegory to biting satire, these shorts reveal the craftsmanship and thematic obsessions that culminated in The Pied Piper, establishing Barta as one of the most important figures in Eastern European stop-motion cinema.

directed by: jiří barta
starring: oldřich kaiser, jiří lábus, michal pavlíček, vilém cok
1986 / 53 min (feature)

Language: Czech
Audio: stereo
Discs: 2

Runtime: 53 minutes (feature)