The Real Shlemiel (1995)
When God distributed wiseness and foolishness through a newly created world, one of the cherubs accidentally dropped all the foolishness on a tiny village called Chelm. So everyone in the village is very dumb. Recently orphaned boy Aaron and his friendly goat Zlateh live there with Aaron's uncle Shlemiel. When an evil sorcerer and his monster attack the village, Aaron and Zlateh have to defend it themselves.
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Pretty Good
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.
"Aaron's Magic Village" a.k.a. "The Real Schlemiel" is an obscure animated movie, but an enjoyable one. It takes its story from the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Jewish folklore. This movie is not up to Disney's state-of-the-art standards, I must say. The scene of the Golem destroying the houses of Chelm was done in 3-D CGI, which doesn't quite fit with the rest of the movie. (A detail! No matter!) Still, you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy this movie!
A lot of animated movies suffer from a lack of innovation and an age-old plot, but AARON'S MAGIC VILLAGE managed to turn around the same old tradition. It's adventure-based, but it defines new meaning. It isn't Disney, but the colors are brilliant along with some 3-D animation. Some of the tunes were very melodic enough to go with the humor. I felt the sound effects were annoying, though. They're just like you hear on other TV cartoon shows, making this sound hokey. I'm not a fan of foreign animated movies, but this one is different. Another perfect way to spend time before the big Thanksgiving meal!
This story of the golem is decidedly different than the other story which takes place in Czech. This takes place in the kingdom of Moldavia (Poland more or less), in the Jewish town of Chelm. The hero, Aaron, attempts to foil a sorceror's attempts to steal a kabbalic book and to animate a destructive golem. While I'm not Jewish myself, I found this to be an interesting look at a seldom-seen (in the US) folktale. Highly recommended!Aka: "Aaron's Magic Village"