"Bolivar: El Heroe" (literally translated to Bolivar: The Hero) is a colombian animated movie from 2003, based loosely (keyword "loosely") on the life of Simón Bolívar, a south american liberator and one of the most important figures in the continent's history. This film was once considered lost, with the trailer and some screenshots being the only evidence of it's existence, but thanks to the effort of this youtube channel the film has been uploaded to youtube for the entire world to see, and thanks to the collegues at the LostMedia wiki the movie has achieved wider notoriety amongst non-spanish communities.
The entire film for everyone to experience.
The movie contains hilariously poor anime inspired character designs (this was the early 00s after all), atrocious animation, nonsensical directing and a plethora of other problems that you discover as soon as you start watching. There's also the ridiculousness of doing a historical film yet making the incredible art decision of giving your main characters ridiculous anime hairstyle and colors that completely go against the tone the film is trying to set forward.
Now you might think, based on the previous screenshot, that this was just the work of some south american otaku teenager and his friends, using MS Paint to put together an insanely low budget animation. Nope, This was an actual full blown production, with a budget and a release date like all films have. That fact along makes this movie fascinating. It makes you wonder about the kind of troubles the entire production must've gone through, they clearly weren't experienced enough to tackle a project as ambitious as this one was. I don't know if this was commisioned to them, or if it was producer's idea and they needed it quick, we don't even know how much it cost to make (all we know based on interviews is that the director Guillermo del Rincón donated 70.000 U$D for the movie).
If you lived in Colombia in 2003 you could've seen THIS at your local cinema!
If you're an animator on any level other than a starting beginner, the movie is even better. Pointing out all the problems is a really fun experience and it can be a good exercise in what NOT to do for your own animated productions. But if you're not, you can still get enjoyment out of the sheer crappiness of it. Although you might get tired of it by the end, it's worth skipping to the fight scenes, where the real QUALITY shines through.
If you have some time to spare, I wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone interested in bad animation, especially if you know spanish.
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