Cinema
Journey to the Beginning of Time
Cesta do pravěku
Karel Zeman · 1955
Synopsis
Jirka, the youngest, has found a trilobite fossil near a cave; with his friends Petr, Toník and Jenda, he sets off by boat into the cave and travels up the river of time. The four boys pass through the Ice Age, the Tertiary and the Secondary, witness a fight between great reptiles, note everything down in a journal, and make their way towards the time when life came out of the ocean.
Context
The first fiction feature by its author, and the first of his films to combine actors, stop-motion animation and painted sets, it was shot in 1953 and 1954 and was released on 5 August 1955. The animals, more than thirty models, follow the illustrations of Zdeněk Burian, conceived with the palaeontologist Josef Augusta; the music is by E. F. Burian. In 1966, William Cayton made a dubbed and reworked version of it for the United States.
Who it is for
Ninety-three minutes, in colour, intended first of all for a young audience: each era visited is presented as a natural science lesson.
Prizes and reception
Prize for best children's film at Venice in 1955, critics' prize at Mannheim in 1956.