Jon Mirsalis on Piano. Ladislaw Starewicz was a cinemagician fully the equal of M?i?s, Cohl and Disney, and his vision was decidedly weirder than any of theirs. Born of Polish parents in Moscow in 1882, and raised in Lithuania, his initial scientific interest in entomology was metamorphosed through the cinema. "Starewicz was filled with wonder at the idea of being able to recreate the living world...(By 1911 and The Beautiful Lukanida) beetles articulated by means of fine wire were no longer used for didactc purposes: they became the protagonists of fiction in the kidnapping of beautiful Helen to a medieval decor...His universe became full of insects on a drunken binge, frolicsome dragonflies, grumpy bumblebees, bees that cook, woodcutter ants and musical crickets...He (endowed) his characters with human emotions and preoccupations as well as unusual imaginations...Yet the poet's imagination was always firmly rooted in the observations of the entomologist. Starewicz's puppets...provide us with their own interpretations of fables from La Fontaine or Krylov and indulge in magical choreographies without losing any of the characteristics possessed by their natural models...This twentieth-century Noah soon embarked all species of animals on his cinematographic Ark." (Jean-Pierre Pagliano, Positif)