A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Shakespeare’s romantic fantasia meets its imaginative match in Trnka’s bejeweled stop-motion adaptation. Here, the filmmaker trades in his traditional wood sculptures to work with a smooth, pale plastic material that adds just the right level of otherworldly, delicate beauty. With figurines so refined they seem carved out of dreams (his Titania and Puck are especially wondrous), and several moments where Trnka pauses the story to simply revel in his imagery (such as when the camera lingers on Titania’s dress of forest creatures), A Midsummer Night’s Dream showcases both the director and the genre of animation at their highest peak.