Krysar ("The Pied Piper") is a 1986 Czechoslovakian animated Dark Fantasy Folk Horror film that was directed by Jiří Barta and is an adaptation of the classic fairy tale The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
The film starts with the townspeople of Hamelin doing their daily chores, while showing the audience just how petty and greedy the people are. Before long, a Swarm of Rats moves into the town, stealing food and jewels, and generally causing a nuisance. Soon after, the Pied Piper himself comes into town, offering to solve the town's rat problem in exchange for 1,000 gold coins. A deal is struck, and he uses his Mind-Control Music to flush out the rats and drive them into the river, where they drown.
Meanwhile, the Jeweler, who sits on the town council, tries to seduce an innocent woman, but she rebuffs his interest, having fallen in love with the Piper himself. Perhaps motivated by jealousy, the town council refuse to pay the Piper the agreed-upon sum. Things get worse from that point forward...
This film is notable for its visual storytelling, being told entirely without dialogue.
The full movie can be found here.
There's also a restored Blu-Ray release by Deaf Alligator.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: The Jeweler tries to seduce the Wool-Spinner by offering her a ring, and later a pearl necklace, and refuses to take no for an answer.
- Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed with the Pied Piper himself. Unlike in the original story, he punishes the people responsible for cheating him, rather than their children. And even then, he seems ready just to let the whole thing go until the Jeweler and his cronies murder the innocent woman.
- Art Shift: There are some scenes where the rats are shown in live action. This was done to show that the rats are more alive than the majority of the humans, who are always portrayed in a robotic or wooden manner. There's also a brief Arcadian Interlude when the Piper plays a song for the Wool-Spinner, done in the style of Flemish Renaissance painting on a wooden surface, and at the end of the movie, the Fisherman takes the Baby off into this landscape. These are the only two moments in the film with bright or vivid colours.
- Beauty Equals Goodness:
- The Wool-Spinner, who falls in love with the Pied Piper, is very beautiful and is one of the only characters in the film who is not corrupted by greed.
- Downplayed with the Fisherman, who has a similar design to most of the townspeople, but his design is softer looking compared to the others. He does nothing wrong, and is spared at the end.
- Body Horror: The townspeople experience this when they start transforming into rats, some of them remaining mostly human but with rat heads, or, as in the cases of the Jeweler and the Butcher, rat bodies and human faces.
- Bullying a Dragon: The town leaders refusing to pay the Pied Piper, when they know he can can control the rats using his flute.
- Too Dumb to Live: This goes very badly for them.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The Fisherman appears as an incidental character a few times, and is the first person to see the Piper arrive in town. He only becomes important in the final scenes, when he ventures into the empty town to see if anyone else has been spared.
- Clock Punk: The movie opens with shots of clockwork "behind the scenes" of the movie, prompting the sun to rise and the town's bell to ring. The townsfolk wake up almost mechanically, sticking their heads out their windows like birds in a massive cuckoo clock. This, combined with the movie's deliberately-crude wooden puppets and Deranged Animation, gives the whole movie the feel of an elaborate clockwork machine.
- CrapsackWorld/WretchedHive: The town of Hamelin, where almost everyone is cruel, petty, and greedy.
- Darker and Edgier: Even though the original fairy tale had the Pied Piper lure the children of Hamelin away to never be seen again, this version contains a bit of violence, a darker and gloomier atmosphere, a heavily implied rape and murder scene of an innocent woman and the Pied Piper transforming all of the townspeople into rats and leading them to the lake to drown. Also, the Pied Piper's appearance is much more sinister and more mysterious than the jester-like appearance in other interpretations.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The Piper might look scary and menacing, but he is, at worst, a Pay Evil unto Evil kind of guy. The few innocent characters in the movie have nothing to fear from him, and he has some genuinely tender interactions with the Wool-Spinner.
- Deranged Animation: Since the designs of the city and the characters were based on German Expressionism and medieval German art, the movie tends to evoke this. For instance, there are a couple of scenes where the rats are shown to be much larger in scale than the buildings and the people themselves.
- Due to the Dead: When the Piper finds the woman's home after she had been raped and killed, he sees her corpse with widened horrified eyes. As a last act of respect, he shuts her eyes before going off to take revenge on the townspeople.
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: What happens to the townspeople at the end of the film, who are transformed into rats and drowned. The innocent Fisherman is spared, though, as is a baby he finds in an empty house.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The people of Hamelin are shown to be greedy and selfish, as opposed to the rats, who are just following their natures. Averted with the innocent woman and the Fisherman, who do nothing wrong. The Pied Piper himself could be called Ambiguously Human.
- Ghost Town: By the end, there is not a single living person left in Hamelin.
- Jabba Table Manners: The town leaders, who eat noisily, messily, and voraciously.
- Karmic Death: Nearly everybody in town gets turned into a rat and drowned, as punishment for their general greed and refusal to pay the Piper his due. Special mention goes to the Jeweler, who is responsible for the Wool-Spinner's death and is the last one to die, as he turns around and vainly begs for mercy before the Piper intensifies his melody and sends the Jeweler plummeting to his death, echoing a similiar scene with one of the rats - specifically, the one who had been stealing his jewelry - earlier in the film. Also worthy of mention is the Butcher, who is shown happily slaughtering animals before the rats' invasion, and he ends up being killed by a rat trap that he set up earlier as he tries following the transformed townspeople.
- Kick the Morality Pet: The Piper forms an emotional bond with the Wool-Spinner, and it's her rape and murder that drives him to finally destroy the town.
- Light Is Good: Nearly all of the character puppets are made from walnut wood, a fairly dark material. The single exception is the innocent and beautiful Wool-Spinner, who is made from maple, a much lighter and paler kind of wood.
- Loners Are Freaks: The more positive version of this trope. The Fisherman and the Wool-Spinner both live outside the town proper, and have very few interactions with the other characters. As such, they are the only ones uncorrupted by the town.
- Magic Music: The Pied Piper's playing has magical effects on the listener.
- Forced Transformation: He turns the villagers into rats at the end.
- Mind-Control Music: Per tradition, the Piper's flute allows him to mind-control the horde of rats to lead them to their dooms. It also works on humans.
- Minor Injury Overreaction: Early in the film, a round of haggling between two of the villagers becomes a screaming match over a matter of a quarter of a coin. As it goes on, their faces become increasingly detailed and distorted.
- Nameless Narrative: Because there's no real dialogue, not a single character in the movie is given a name. Some supplementary material refers to the Wool-Spinner as Agnes, but this is never made clear anywhere in the film itself.
- Non-Indicative Name: This Piper isn't especially pied, wearing dull colours. Averted with the original Czech title, Krysař, which translates simply to "Ratcatcher", with no indication of a brightly-coloured outfit.
- Non-Malicious Monster: The rats, despite causing problems for Hamelin, are only really following their instincts and are just trying to survive in the town of Hamelin. Emphasized in a scene where a group of them cooperate to steal a length of sausage links.
- Rape as Drama: It's implied that the Jeweler and his friends rape the Wool-Spinner before killing her.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: Although the Piper kills nearly everyone in town, he spares the old Fisherman, who has spent the whole movie up to this point minding his own business and fishing. The Fisherman explores the empty town and hears a baby crying - apparently the only other survivor of Hamelin. The movie ends with the two of them setting off into the countryside in search of a better place to live. The brighter colours - reflecting the Arcadian Interlude earlier in the movie - suggest an optimistic ending to what is otherwise an extremely bleak, murky film.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After the Pied Piper is denied payment and the Wool-Spinner is murdered, he turns the townsfolk into rats and forces them to drown themselves.
- Speaking Simlish: All the dialogue is in a kind of jabbering non-language, saving non-Czech viewers from having to deliberate between dub and sub.
- The Spook: Like in the original fairy tale, no one knows who the Pied Piper is or where he came from, and his entire character is a true mystery. Emphasized at the end, when he suddenly vanishes into thin air, leaving behind only his cloak, which floats off into the sky.
- Swarm of Rats: Like in the original fairy tale, the rats end up overtaking the town of Hamelin, which prompts the town to request the Piper's help to get rid of the rats. At the end of the movie, the townspeople themselves become rats when the Piper decides to pay their "kindness" back.
- Terrifying Pet Store Rat: Used to effect, where the rather cute rats come across as far more sympathetic than most of the human characters.
- Transformation Trauma: The people of Hamelin can be seen visibly panicking as they turn into rats.
- What You Are in the Dark: The Fisherman proves that he truly is worthy of being spared the grisly fate of the other townsfolk when he takes an abandoned baby with him to a better home away from the now deserted Hamelin.
- You Dirty Rat!: Surprisingly inverted, it's the rats who are portrayed the most "alive" in comparison to the inhabitants of Hamelin, with the rodents merely doing things following their nature.
