The King And The Mocking Bird, film review: Grotesquerie, romanticism and comedy

(U) Paul Grimault, 84 mins

Delicacy and lyricism: 'The King and the Mocking Bird'

There's a delicacy and lyricism, a handcrafted quality here not found in contemporary, CGI-animated features.

The film, begun in the 1940s but only completed in 1980, is based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, but was scripted by Jacques Prévert.

It boasts the same mix of grotesquerie, romanticism and comedy that Prévert also brought to his screenplay for Marcel Carné's Les Enfants du Paradis.