Sándor Reisenbüchler: four psychedelic shorts from Hungary’s hippie of animation
Explore one of Eastern Europe’s most remarkable visual artists with our collection of shorts from the great Sándor Reisenbüchler: the self-professed hippie hermit whose psychedelic visions revolutionised Hungarian animation over five decades.
A key figure in Hungary’s proud tradition of animated film, Sándor Reisenbüchler remains under-appreciated outside of his native country. Pioneering a pop-art-inspired collage style that blends surreal visuals with pointed ecological and satirical themes, this self-described hippie laboured in isolation over his fantastical shorts, which garnered praise on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Today, “the hermit of animation” is recognised as one of Hungarian cinema’s true pioneers. Klassiki presents four of his spectacular animated shorts, from the folkloric freak out of his award-winning The Kidnapping of the Sun and Moon, to the anti-consumerist spectacle of Ecotopia, via the seventies sci-fi of Panic and Moon Flight.
-
The Kidnapping of the Sun and Moon
Directed by Sándor Reisenbüchler • 1968 • Hungary
Inspired by Carpathian folklore and based on the epic poem by Ferenc Juhász, this mesmerising animated short by the great Sándor Reisenbüchler imagines a world destroyed and then rebuilt. A fearsome, seven-headed dragon swallows the sun and moon,...
-
Moon Flight
Directed by Sándor Reisenbüchler • 1975 • Hungary
One of the finest examples of Sándor Reisenbüchler’s psychedelic take on animation, this cult classic short reimagines science fiction by way of sixties counterculture. Two scientists propose that the moon is in fact an ancient spaceship, and tra...
-
Panic
Directed by Sándor Reisenbüchler • 1978 • Hungary
One of Sándor Reisenbüchler’s most playful and politically pointed shorts, Panic weds his familiar dazzling colour palette and engagingly naive visual style to a parable about the dangers of unchecked technology. An advanced civilisation takes th...
-
Ecotopia
Directed by Sándor Reisenbüchler • 1995 • Hungary
Dedicated to the memory of Fritz Lang, this rarely seen late short from Sándor Reisenbüchler offers up an eye-popping ecological vision. Moving from frantic cityscapes bursting with lurid colours and a phantasmagoria of commodities to idyllic pas...
-
Sándor Reisenbüchler: psychedelic shorts from Hungary’s “hermit of animation”
320 KB
