Although a couple of long-lost Argentinean films may or may not predate it, this stands in the history books as the oldest surviving feature-length animated picture in history, a fact which is genuinely astounding given how well it's aged. Although the entire film is populated by silhouettes, the creative intellects responsible quickly shift that handicap into a calling card. Extravagantly ornate character and set designs give us more than enough to establish the cast and tell its ambitious fairy tale, while the thick black mattes leave just as much of the screen to be filled in by the viewer's imagination. Judged by modern standards the pace is very slow, but the plot - lifted piecemeal from a dozen different myths and fables - moves in unexpectedly bold directions. Best viewed as a spectacular time capsule, it's an enlightening glimpse at the roots of a proud industry that's yet to finish its first century.