Nutcracker Fantasy

The film takes E. T. A. Hoffmann’s tale of the nutcracker and the mouse king together with the ballet that grew out of it and builds its own version: a wooden nutcracker that comes into a child’s hands wakes up when night falls, and the girl finds herself inside a kingdom besieged by an army of mice. Through the story, toy, dream and reality run into each other. The ninety five minute Japanese production directed by Takeo Nakamura was made by Sanrio and done entirely in puppet animation, frame by frame. Kaoru Sugita and Kō Nishimura are among the voices. It was completed in 1979 and carries the classic story into a strange visual world well outside the familiar ballet.