The Old Man and the Sea Review

The Old Man and the Sea is a 1999 Russian Oscar winning animated short film that is good, but not great.

The film is very much a straightforward adaptation of this classic story and it doesn’t stray away too much from it which is fine. Of course the selling point here is its paint-on-glass animation which is simply gorgeous. It is so artistic, so beautiful in its colors and so masterfully shot thanks to some incredible camera work that it becomes a moving work of art. It’s as if paintings moved and there are literally hundreds of wallpaper-worthy images and moments here.

I liked how it adapted the and the twenty-minute runtime is almost perfect for this plot. The two characters are also quite solid. However, I strongly disliked the voice acting here. Not only is it not great and the mouth moves oddly and amateurishly but it is also entirely unnecessary for this type of film and the narration is particularly off-putting.

The Old Man and the Sea is foolishly narrated, but still a well adapted famous story fueled by astonishing, artistic and downright masterful animation.