A ballet story reimagined as animated science fiction, Coppelia (2021) moves the old tale of a doctor and his artificial creation into a bright little town where beauty is suddenly on sale to everyone.

What is Coppelia about?

Swan lives in a small town that changes almost overnight when Doctor Coppelius opens his cosmetic clinic on the main square. One by one her neighbours walk out of his surgery smoother, shinier and oddly obedient, and before long the whole community is under his charm. Her sweetheart Franz is drawn in as well. What Swan does not yet know is that the Doctor's real project waits in a back room: Coppelia, a flawless robot-woman who needs a living heart before she can wake, and Franz's heart is the one he has picked. With the town hypnotised and the clock running down, Swan has to find her way past the Doctor's admirers, into the clinic, and get Franz out before the switch is thrown.

About the cast

The credited cast includes Michaela Deprince, Daniel Camargo, Vito Mazzeo, Darcey Bussell, Jan Kooijman and Irek Mukhamedov. The film is directed by the trio of Jeff Tudor, Steven De Beul and Ben Tesseur, who share the credit on a production that combines animated design with live performers. With a story that leans on gesture and rhythm more than dialogue, the performers carry much of the emotional weight through movement.

Context & significance

Coppelia takes its name and its basic premise from the nineteenth-century ballet about a toymaker and his lifelike doll, but it swaps the toy workshop for a cosmetic clinic and turns the doll into a robot, which is what pushes the film into science-fiction territory. A Belgian, German and Dutch co-production released in 2021, it is catalogued as animation, family and sci-fi and runs a compact 82 minutes, short enough for younger viewers while its satire of surface perfection gives adults something to chew on.

Watching Coppelia on Ktime

Coppelia streams on K-Time for anyone with a free account login; reading this page requires nothing at all. The interface is available in Persian, so families watching together in the diaspora can browse and play the film in a fully Farsi environment. This title is presented in its original version without a Persian dub or subtitles, though its story is told largely through images and music, which makes it easy to follow.