Why Lotte Reiniger's wheel movie is still better than CGI

If you have about four minutes to spare and you don't mind things being a bit old-fashioned, you should definitely watch this. It is great for people who like seeing how things are made by hand. If you only like high-speed action or 4K resolution, you will probably be bored out of your mind. 🛞

Lotte Reiniger is the one behind this. She didn't use computers or drawings in the normal sense. She used scissors and black paper. It is basically a shadow puppet show that someone caught on film.

The movie starts with these jagged little cavemen. They are trying to move big heavy things. You can see the struggle in the way the paper shapes tilt. Then, someone sees a log rolling. 💡

It is such a simple idea. But the way Reiniger shows the transition from a log to a wooden wheel is so smooth. It feels like a little dance. The rhythm of the movie is what gets you.

I noticed that the wheels aren't perfectly round. Since they are cut by hand, they have these tiny little bumps. It makes the movement feel more real. It is not like the sterile circles you see in a math textbook.

There is a part with a horse-drawn carriage that I really liked. The way the horses' legs move is so staccato and sharp. It reminded me a bit of the frantic energy in Nuts and Jolts, even though that is a totally different kind of film. 🐎

The Middle Bit

The movie moves through history pretty fast. It doesn't stop to explain anything. It just shows the wheels getting bigger and the carriages getting fancier. You see the spokes getting thinner and more delicate.

One scene has a lot of people crowded around a new invention. It feels a little cluttered for a second. The silhouettes start to overlap and it is hard to tell where one person ends and the next begins. But maybe that was the point. The world was getting crowded.

I wonder how long it took to cut out all those tiny spokes. My hands would cramp up after five minutes. Reiniger must have had infinite patience.

It is weirdly relaxing to watch. There is no dialogue. No one is shouting. It is just the visual of the rolling wheel over and over. It is almost like a meditation if you don't think too hard about it.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Das rollende Rad (1933) through its definitive frames.

If you enjoy this kind of silent storytelling, you might also find something like Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde interesting, though that is much more about the acting than the craft of the animation itself.

The "Modern" Era

The end of the film shows "modern" cars. Keep in mind, this was made in 1934. So the cars look like something my great-grandpa would have been excited about. 🚗

They look like little black beetles skittering across the screen. The wheels are spinning so fast they almost look solid. It is a cool effect for such a low-tech setup.

It makes you think about how much we take for granted. We just hop in a car and go. We don't think about the thousands of years of people dragging rocks in the mud.

Some things to look out for:

• The way the background stays simple so the wheels pop.
• The tiny little hats on the drivers.
• The flickering of the old film stock which adds a nice grain.

The pacing gets a bit rushed toward the end. I wish it lingered a bit more on the early steam engines. They looked really cool but were gone in a flash. Anyway.

I think I prefer this to a lot of the stuff from that era, like Her Great Match, which feels way more stiff. Reiniger’s paper cutouts actually feel like they are breathing.

Is it a masterpiece? Maybe not. It is more like a very beautiful infographic from a time before that word existed. It does exactly what it says on the tin. It shows a wheel. It rolls. 🔄

It’s a bit like A Bit of Kindling in how it takes a small idea and just lets it be what it is without forcing a big dramatic ending. It just stops when it is done.

Final thought: I want to try cutting out a silhouette now. I’ll probably just cut my finger though. Better to just watch Lotte do it. ✨