Fern Flowers (S)

In Fleur de fougère (1949), he slowly pans along a medieval banquet table of Aesopian animals, stopping by each one for a quick comment or joke. Choosing to film fables at a time when cinema was embracing brash and sophisticated modern idioms, Starewicz might have seen himself as a preserver of an ancient tradition. It was as if he were drawn again and again to shedding light on the frailties of mankind by endowing the small animals he animated with the lineaments of human behavior. And he did it lovingly. He made his puppets himself—from wire, wax, chamois, straw, and cork—and one imagines they "told" him as much as he told them.