Inspired by a legend about Charlemagne, the ring is rooted in the magic-realism of European story-telling tradition. Highly theatrical, the film unites striking visuals and mesmerizing music with unique silent acting. It tells the story of an aging king, disillusioned with worldly affairs, who falls under the spell of a magical ring. Like a fairy-tale, it has an eerie, magical quality, emphasized by the unique style of acting, visuals and music. The theatrical quality of the film is created with the non-verbal acting style, the extensive costumes, the expressionistic make-up and the surrealistic set.
Drawn together by the creative vision of director Tamás Wormser, the film is an amalgam of many artistic efforts. The cast of the ring, made up of professional and amateur actors, dancers and performers, participated in a series of innovative acting workshops through which the unique acting style of the film evolved.
The creation of the ring was also a collaboration of other media artists. Amongst them was art director Pierre Lefebvre, who built the sets from "post-industrial artefacts" in an old mill in rural Quebec. A multi-disciplinary collage-artist, from photo-montage to sound and optical sculptures, Lefebvre also included props for the film from his enormous collection of hybrid post-industrial artefacts. The furniture, such as the thrones and the bed was made by Tibor Timár, a sculptor and furniture-maker. He worked with drift-wood and scrap metal pieces, which he welded together to create the ornate pieces. Ivan Gekoff, the Bulgarian-born director of photography, was given the near-impossible task of capturing the surrealistic images on film. The original soundtrack of this "silent film" was composed by Ganesh Anandan whose music crosses the musical boundaries of classical Indian and "new music". Often using his own hand-built instruments, he combined his expertise in micro-tonal music with extended voice techniques of harmonic and throat singing to create the exceptional music style of the ring.
