1001 Nights

This review might contain spoilers. You may proceed if you can handle the truth...

1001 Nights, directed by Mike Smith, is the first and only instalment of the groundbreaking Filmharmonic project. Like Disney's magnum opus Fantasia, it opens with a narrator to inform viewers what they will experience in the next 20 minutes. After the narrator finishes his explanation, there is neither monologue nor dialogue for the remaining runtime. To compensate for the lack of conversations, the composer David Newman, who received an Academy Award nomination for a film score a year before the release of 1001 Nights, arranged a magnificent, intense and exotic score. The music perfectly captures the unpredictable moods and facets of the chaotic, turbulent and mystical dream of the young Arabic princess.

Along with the excellent musical arrangement, the gorgeous and detailed character design by Yoshitaka Amano is also outstanding. The Japanese artist is well-known for his commissioned illustrations for the popular video-game franchise Final Fantasy and the character designs for both Vampire Hunter D movies. Besides, he was the character designer and art director of Oshii's ambitious, surreal masterpiece Angel's Egg. Although the viewer could glimpse Amano's genius and talent in the former project, 1001 Nights was the ideal project to reveal his immense creativity and ingenuity.

Besides the impressive character designs, the experimental animation is another highlight of the short. Despite the original plan to animate the whole film with CGI, they decided to use different painting media like watercolours, detailed black and white sketchbook drawings, digital drawings etc. A perfect stylistic choice to emphasize the chaotic and lively nature of dreams. The majority of the different painting media look charming, are well-integrated and flow fluently into each other. The only exception is CGI, which looks rough around the edges and does not harmonize with the hand-drawn animation. Albeit the technology was not as mature in 1998 as today, movies like Ghost in the Shell, released in 1995, accomplished a better job of blending CGI with hand-drawn animation.

To summarize, 1001 Nights skilfully incorporates different painting media with a remarkable score. Fans of experimentation concerning animation, music lovers and Fantasia enthusiasts should watch this short as soon as possible. Other anime enjoyers should also consider watching it because of its 22-minute runtime. At the point of writing, no streaming service has the movie in its collection, and the CD has not received a reprint in years. Therefore, if you get the opportunity to watch in the future, you should seize it.