Tales From The Magic Garden

Death is something of a taboo in contemporary society, especially around children. The urge to protect our offspring from the unpleasantness of the world is understandable, but shocks are still inevitable – a family pet dies, an old neighbour passes away, a grandma dies and so on. We can tell little white lies or drop the brutal truth to the kids, hoping they will never find out in the case of the first option, or that they will somehow handle it in the case of the second.

Tales Of The Magic Garden, an animated film written and directed by a big team, offers a middle road that could help the young ones understand and process the unpleasant truths about life passing and grieving taking its time. It premiered at Berlinale’s Generation Kplus section, toured festivals around the world and is now screening in Karlovy Vary, where it is screening in the non-competitive Horizons section.

Three siblings, whose names change from one dubbed version to another, but are called Tom, four, Susan, eight, and Derek, ten, in the English-language version, used to enjoy the company of their grandma who had a talent of conjuring a story from three “ingredients” chosen by the kids themselves. After the grandma passes away, the children visit their grieving grandpa, but still miss grandma and her stories. Susan tries to step into her shoes, even using her hat as a prop, and starts telling the stories. Within the framework of this “big”, real-life story, three other stories about death, grieving and feeling someone’s absence are being told.

The first one is a dark fairy tale about kids picking up a stray cat who, once their parents survive a traffic accident, turns into a person who poses as their aunt, thus preventing them from ending up in a state-run home. In the next, a seemingly wimpy boy finds a cabin in an enchanted forest occupied by an elderly lady who grieves after the departure of her beloved partner while trying to take care of a beast that feeds on apple cores. The final story features a grumpy elderly man who learns that he is able to fly whenever he thinks of the nice moments he spent with his wife, who passed away recently.

All four stories are sourced from Arnošt Goldram’s collection Of Unwanted Things And People, and the general technical approach is the same: 3D stop-motion puppet animation. However, each of the stories have their distinctive characteristics. The first one feels the most artistically inspired, while the third feels the most sentimental by the means of its central, thinly veiled metaphor and the brightness of its colour scheme. The middle tale feels mostly conventional narrative-wise, but its plotting is the thickest and it also breaks the style in favour of the retro comic book-like look in an extended flashback sequence.

Equally interesting is the story of the production of the feature. Namely, it was developed over the course of almost a decade, also through the hardships of the Covid pandemic. It is a rare example of a completely parity co-production: the teams from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and France, represented by the directors David Sukup, Patrik Pašš, Leon Vidmar and Jean-Claude Rozec, the writers, producers and production companies provided a quarter of the budget and a quarter of the work each. The cohesion of that collective work and the stylistic “unity” of the final product is quite laudable, as it seems it was based on a singular vision.

Tales From The Magic Garden is not a perfect film, though. On the narrative level, it seems that all the “inner” stories in the anthology could be a little longer and cut a bit deeper. But in the format of just 71 minutes, it does not overstay its welcome both for its primary target audience of young school children and the parents who accompany them. It also serves as a teaching tool of sorts that bridges the gap between the generations and opens up a communication regarding some unpleasant topics that are very present in everyday life. Tales From The Magic Garden is also a very meaningful addition to the current wave of Central and Eastern European animation that seems to be very lively and have a great future.

Reviewed on: 06 Jul 2025