I saw this film for the first time this evening when it was shown at my university just before my animation course leader interviewed Suzie Templeton, director of this masterpiece. It's hard to determine if this is the first or second adaptation of 'Peter and the Wolf' I have ever seen - I probably saw the Disney Mini Classics version when I was a child or just its trailer.Further to this version, the characters are well-crafted and their poses and facial expressions, particularly on the humans, the wolf and the cat, are natural but their movements are quite jerky and sometimes slow, whereas the animation on the bird trying to steal Peter's balloon is well-done since attempting to animate a bird flying in stop- motion is believed to be difficult to master. The backgrounds on the other hand are detailed and realistic. Although there is no spoken dialogue, there are still human vocal sounds like grunts, growls, gasps and laughter and the facial animation is expressive enough to communicate the characters' feelings. The music is sparse to begin with but I like the main composition because it is cheerful, memorable and is played in different arrangements. The music is variable with different instruments representing each character and changing its mood. It does a sound job with driving the narrative while The sound effects are plentiful and also realistic. There are few humorous moments such as the bird pooing on the cat if this is crude. There are also poignant and tense moments. Water is used well, especially when the cat falls through the frozen pond and tears form in Peter's eyes before he sees the wolf for the first time. The ending was tense but quite abrupt.Overall, this is an intricately detailed if slightly unevenly-animated stop-motion piece with its music being the strongest point. 9/10.

An outstanding animated short which deserved all the praise that it received.Not only the animation style of this magnificent short is incredibly well done, with a high level of detail and realism that goes beyond everything that I have seen before, but also, the way in which this story is told is magical and fascinating: "Peter & the Wolf" is partially a fairy tale, partially a semi-realistic story (With some naturalistic elements that go incredibly well with the hyper-detailed animation style) but is always something incredibly captivating and wonderful, which tells a simple story from an unique perspective. And that's what makes this something so special and fascinating, being one of the greatest animations that I've seen in my entire life.10/10 (I would rate it with eleven stars if I could)

This is the day before the Oscars are announced for 2008 and I just got back from a special screening by our local film society of all five films nominated in the category of Best Animated Short Film. This film was among the five and while a very good film, it just seemed in a different league compared to the two best nominees, Petrov's "Moya lyubov" and "Même les pigeons vont au paradis"--as these two films were great and clearly deserve the statuette (too bad they can't give two)."Peter and the wolf" is a retelling of the Prokofiev's classic musical tale. Unlike other versions, this one is not set in the 19th century but more recent times, as there are cars and other modern things in the film. Also, unlike many of the previous versions, this one does not use traditional animation but stop-motion animation--producing a very pretty film.As for me, although this is a lovely film and tooks years to make, this is a wonderful case of "been there, done that" because I have seen this story before and frankly don't want to see yet another version of this classic tale. While the animation is nice, the creators of this short film did not need to spend much time writing--just adapting a story. Because of that, I just can't see it winning the Oscar. Pretty good, but probably not in the running for the award.2/24/08--Apparently I am terrible at guessing Oscars as this film DID win the Oscar for Best Animated Short. It was a lovely film--its winning just surprised me.

The animation in this re-imagining of Peter & the Wolf is excellent, but at 29 minutes, the film is sleep inducing. They should have called it "Peter & the Snails", because everything moves at a snail's pace. I couldn't even watch the film in one sitting - I had to watch it 15 minutes at a time, and it was pure torture.Save yourself 30 minutes - do not watch this film - and you will thank me.I can only guess that the Oscar nominating committee only watched the first few minutes of the nominees. Unfortunately, to vote for the winner in the Best Animated Short (short!) category, the voters will have to sit through the whole thing. I already feel sorry for them - and must predict that there's no way this film will come close to winning.