Product Description

Blood Tea and Red String is a handmade stop-motion fairy tale for adults. Thirteen years in the making, Christiane Cegavske's dialogue free film tells the tale of the struggle between the aristocratic White Mice and the rustic Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak over the doll of their heart's desire. The Mice commission the Oak Dwellers to create a beautiful doll for them. When she is complete, the Creatures fall in love with her and refuse to give her up. Resorting to thievery the Mice abscond with her in the middle of the night. Meet fantastical creatures and view dazzling scenery as the Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak journey through this mystical land to reclaim their love. See the mice descend into debauchery as they become drunk on blood tea! See what happens when the Oak Dwellers eat the yellow fruit! A heart rending musical score that was composed and performed by Mark Growden accompanies this disturbing and wondrous adventure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31454 in DVD
• Brand: KOCH ENT.
• Released on: 2006-11-07
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 69 minutes

Features

• This dark foray into the world of stop-motion animation offers a gloomy fairy story aimed at adults. The story revolves around a group of mice who battle some devious creatures for possession of a doll. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ANIMATION Rating: NR Age: 891514001054 UPC: 891514001054 Manufacturer No: EPO-DV1054

Customer Reviews

Amazing to see & savor!
This would be an astonishing film under any circumstances, given its detail & dreamlike, sometimes nightmarish quality. Knowing that it was made by one person over 13 years only increases my admiration. Truly a labor of love! Rich colors, fascinating characters that capture both the innocence & exaggerated fears of a child's world, memorable images that seem almost archetypal -- just stunning. It has the look & flavor of a very old tale, repeated over countless generations. If you're looking for something different, something very far from the mass market animation that seems to exist solely to sell cheap merchandise, then you won't go wrong here. Most highly recommended!

Magical and mysterious
I'm really not sure how to describe this movie, so I'll start with the bare facts. Cegavske appears to have started from some art-school sketchbooks, and assembled a gorgeous stop-animation, supposedly taking 13 years to complete. She did all the design, scripting and animation, so this was clearly a labor of love. She created remarkable characters and sets, beautifully crafted. The composer she engaged for the score did an outstanding job, especially in the unearthly tones of the mouses' dance.

All of which says nothing about the characters and plot of the movie, which I still can't quite put words to. It carried the sense of a fully-elaborated dream world, but of someone else's dreams. The different beings seemed to act out rituals of deep importance, all of which eluded me. Rich, detailed imagery abounds, almost like the imagery of a Tarot deck - but with all of the arcane meanings unspoken. The viewer rides along in this wordless world, sensing the characters' urgency but never making out the reason for it.

Cegavske's puppets and props bring that baffling world to life. Even though this medium has been used for years in children's entertainment, make no mistake: this is for grownups. Skittish children might not tolerate the deaths of characters, or scenes like the "blood tea." A few moments drag; the script's pacing seemed uneven, and the puppet's motions never flowed smoothly. I can't let the little things get in my way, though. This stands as an incredible work of creativity, and a glimpse into another mind's imaginings.

-- wiredweird

deep, sweet, smart and beautiful
At first the idea of "dialogue free" scared me off, as did stop action animation, since Davy and Goliath and Gumby always freaked me out, but I read a review in Daily Variety that compared it to David Lynch and Beatrix Potter, so I had to check it out. WOW! Deep saturated colors, amazing music and most importantly deeply gorgeous storyline with phenomenal characters that really come alive. The layers of symbolism and the tragic tale of love and loss make this a MUST HAVE for film fans into Dali, Browning, Lynch, etc. Awesome!