Ado Arrietta
Merlin / Grenouilles / Kiki
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Add rightsFormat DVD Interzone
Original format 35mm, 16mm
Year 1984-1990
Language(s) French, Spanish
Artist(s) Adolpho Arrietta
Sous-titres French, English, Spanish
Running time 113 min
Films
MERLIN / 1990 / 58'
GRENOUILLES / 1984 / 35'
KIKI / 1989 / 22'
Description
"Grenouilles: On an island in the middle of the ocean live men and frog-women. Nora, a beautiful Russian spy, wants to avenge the betrayal of her lover, the artist Tibor. There is also a Unesco spy, a mysterious exterminator plotting the end of the world, and a gang of thieves disguised as frog-men… Kiki: A man and his cat. Merlin: An adaptation of Jean Cocteau's play Les Chevaliers de la table ronde, in which Adolpho Arrietta plays the role of Merlin."
— Capricci
"I don't know if it comes from Cocteau or from the Round Table, or from the interlacing of these readings, but with Arrietta, the tale (not the theater) embraces legend on the lips, and we can barely find our bearings. Let's rather say that Cocteau's theatrical, almost childlike magic, his play with doubles and his cheerful syncretism find in Arrietta not an enthusiastic exegete or scrupulous copyist, but an apprentice-inventor, a rascal as serious as an antipope, a perfect Ginifer, ultimately, that little demon to whom Merlin has the power to give whatever form he wants and whom he trains for his own use."
— Pierre Léon, Cinéma n°14