The legendary Jirí Trnka's animation studios and director Jirí Barta re-imagine the Pied Piper fable in this extraordinary combination of puppet animation, ornately designed oil-painted backdrops, and live action. Recreating a Czech medieval town on a miniaturized set of baroque slants and expressionist shadows, Barta creates a gothic never-was world caught somewhere between Gaudí and Kafka, Caligari and Svankmajer. A town is overrun with rats; when a piper leads the vermin away, the greedy townsfolk reward him not with praise but disdain, and thus seal their doom. Barta uses various woods and patterns to create a different look for each “human” puppet-he even gives them an imaginary language to speak-but overruns both fake town and fake townspeople with alarmingly real rats, giving further power to this parable of a human society overrun with vermin, and consumed by scavengers.