Tres Caballeros: A weird, jerky bit of history

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, it depends on how much you like staring at grainy, jerky figures moving across a screen. If you’re into the weird, dusty history of animation, you’ll dig it. If you need a story that actually goes somewhere, you’re going to be bored out of your mind in about three minutes.

It’s definitely not for the casual Netflix crowd.

The vibe

There is something inherently unsettling about Tres Caballeros. The movement isn't smooth, but it has this weird, frantic energy. It feels like the puppets are trying to escape the frame.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Tres Caballeros (1932) through its definitive frames.

I found myself staring at the background textures more than the characters. Everything looks like it was made out of leftover scraps from a Victorian attic. It’s got that same odd, handmade feeling you get when watching something like The Devil's Partner, where the silence of the room feels heavier than the action on screen.

Small observations

• The lighting flickers in a way that’s almost hypnotic.
• One of the figures moves its arm at a speed that seems physically impossible for the time.
• The frame rate is all over the place. Sometimes it’s snappy, sometimes it’s like watching a slideshow.

It’s funny to think that someone sat there, frame by frame, sweating over these tiny movements. Total dedication to weirdness. It makes me think of the experimental messiness in Koko's Paradise. They clearly didn't have a map for where they were going.

I didn't care about the 'caballeros' at all. I cared about the dust motes dancing in the light of the projector lens. Sometimes the movie just stops being a movie and starts being a document of a guy in a room playing with toys.

It’s not a masterpiece. It’s not even really a 'good' film by modern standards. But it feels real in a way that modern CGI just can't touch. It’s glitchy, it’s short, and it’s completely unpretentious. 🎞️