(Cesta do pravěku)  
Directed by Karel Zeman 
83 minutes
In Czech with English subtitles

Karel Zeman was one part craftsman, another part magician. There is something so special about taking elemental material, like wood, and bringing it to life through animated puppetry. It feels like life has been breathed into them, as if something has been conjured up. Karel Zeman was a wizard in this process. His use of live action combined with painted backdrops and stop-motion puppetry is stunning and poetically breathtaking. 

In this film a group of boys on a rowboat paddle against the stream, finding themselves at an entrance of a mysterious cave, which they enter in their boat. When they come out the other side of the cave they find themselves in another world, an ancient landscape of so-called prehistoric animals.The world that is created by the director has a strong artistic side, with many of the reconstructions were modeled after the paintings of a Czech artist named Zdenek Burian. The images are filled with old-school rich pastel colors that are haunting. As one astute viewer pointed out you can see that this film was made in communist Czechoslovakia, since the group of boys are collective and all are equal, whereas if it had been made in America one of the boys would've been a leader and a hero. So true. 

Watching movies is a personal thing and everybody experiences a movie differently. For me, most modern computer-generated effects simply hammer my imagination down... they are too sensational and bombastic. But the kind of effects in this film by Zeman ignite my imagination and spirit... maybe because there's a gentle artistic innocence involved, which is something we can use more of in our 'modern' world which has become so narrow-minded, and in many ways downright cynical. It's about time we learn how to create magic again!