IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Diagonaldi Very well executed

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Lee Eisenberg The winner of Best Animated Short Film at the 53rd Academy Awards depicts a fly flitting about, all told from the insect's point of view. I understand that Ferenc Rofusz wasn't allowed to leave Hungary to attend the Academy Awards, but someone accepted the Oscar for him. Anyway, "A Légy" ("The Fly" in English) is a clever cartoon. Rofusz probably didn't have a lot of resources, but he had the talent, and that's what you really need to turn out a good piece of work. The Eastern Bloc turned out a lot of good cartoons. I also recommend the old Yugoslavian cartoons.I get the feeling that members of the order Diptera must sometimes feel as if humans are out to get them.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "The Fly" is a 1981 Hungarian 3-minute short film and it may be among the shortest winner of Oscars in the Best Animated Short Film category. Director Ferenc Rófusz was in his 30s when he made this and he managed to build a decent career on that Oscar success in the last 30 years. Still, nothing that came close to this huge success again, but he could certainly pay his bills from his work in animation. I am generally not too familiar with Hungarian cinema or animation at all, so this was a nice little watch. I really do not like insects, so I probably could not have dealt with that annoying sound from the fly for much longer than 3 minutes, so I'm glad it's over. The animation is fairly unique as well. Looks like it took a lot of effort to make all these images, even if it is such a short movie. All in all, I recommend this. Do not expect anything outstanding, but it's a nice little journey and we find out how a fly sees the world and perceives her constant fight for survival. Thumbs up.

Rectangular_businessman "A Légy" is a visually impressive animated short from Hungary, which in less than three minutes is able to show a day in the life of a fly.The animation from this short is fairly impressive (specially considering the time when this was made) having a very realistic style and a incredibly level of detail in every frame.The camera shots and perspectives used in "A Légy" were quite interesting, with many movements that would be difficult or impossible to make in a live-action format.Anyway, I loved the unique visual style that this brief animation had, being something way too ahead of its time. The Academy Award was very well deserved.9.5/10

alice liddell As this is an East-European animation from the early 1980s, we must assume that it is An Allegory. These can be very difficult to interpret for the Western viewer. This film is probably only comprehensible to anyone who lived in Hungary at the time, each frame loaded with specific historical or cultural detail. The most that can be made out is the crushing of life - the fly begins the film very alive, hurtling through nature, and ends it squashed in a tray of other flies in a centre of civilisation - a Big House - loaded with statues and insect classifications. The paralells seem obvious. The fly's patterned halting to inspect its own shadow may be a hint of the film's own double nature.Or it may be a dulled awakening of consciousness. This for me is the film's real achievement - the perfect mimicing of a scuttling insect's point-of-view, whirring through space, a vertiginous journey. The restless, sepiad animation is beautiful, allowing an untrammelled access live action never could, as the fly travels through sparse forest, over flat greenery, and up to the house itself.The change from a barely sensed impulse of freedom to trapped panic is shockingly done - we move with the fly, interestedly examining the rather stiff furniture and ornaments (the apparatus of the state?) until we realise that it is these that will kill it: he will be squashed against some chair, pane or wall.The house sequence opens with a joyous, privileged fly's eye view that would normally be denied to us, as it zooms through candles hanging from ceilings, making us rethink our own everyday accoutrements, space, even existence. Everything the fly meets is a voyage of discovery, new, not the dulled routine of a police state. This clear-eyed view can be very dangerous and must be crushed. The fly, as it tries to make its escape, can't understand, as he hits against the window, why he can see the open countryside - freedom - and yet can't escape.The symbolism may be obvious, but it is terrifyingly effective. The brief journey from darkness through unthinking consciousness, to enforced darkness again, is awing, yet chilling. Most East-European animation seems to get lost in self-defeating, pretentious circles, but this is a wonderful film, with a clear, impassioned, angry yet humorous focus.