Maebius Musing

We just watched a very, VERY awesome movie that I had rented via NetFlix, called Kirikou and the Sorceress.   I did not know anything about this film, but it showed up in a random sample of children’s/international  movies.   All I can say is, I highly recommend it for anyone wishing to step outside the usual Disney films and expose your family to a bit of multi-cultural flavor.

(Trailer is here)
The movie does a great job translating my pre-conceptions of a good African Folktale into an animated movie, and seems to remain really true to the culture.   The colours are bright and vivid in many scenes, which contrasts the barren landscapes shown in some other segments.  The storytelling is very engaging and can easily be broken up into a number of shorter mini-segments if you want to spark off an educational discussion regarding the plot.

The plot, without giving anything away, follows a small baby, Kirikou, who is born fully self-aware and speaking, and learns that an Evil sorceress has cursed the town and eaten all the men.   He goes through a series of adventures to save the various townsfolk, using his wits and child-like love to overcome the obstacles in his path.  Eventually, he confronts the Sorceress through several teachable moments, and important lessons, such as not letting mean people get to you, and understanding that the way someone treats others has more to do with them than those they are hurting.   Kirikou remains child-like and small of stature throughout the film, but is never “childish”.
For very young children, there are a very few slightly disurbing scenes, such as the initial meeting of the Sorceress being kinda scary (similar, I suppose, to the old Disney character, Maleficent, who was not a nice witch!), and later a weasil-like creature hunting smaller chipmonk-ish things.  However, these scenes are not overly threatening, or gory, and the tension is mostly felt through dramatic music and a close-up of angry faces/flashing of teeth.  I’ve seen worse on daytime TV commercials, but the engaging nature of the story means we all got drawn into the world much more than a TV commercial would, and thus jumped a bit at the sudden angry-sorceress scene (it only lasts a second or two). Sensitive children may also need to be spoken to about the fact that wild animals hunting in nature are not always nice, (though there is never any prey killed overtly on-screen), and the situation is presented more as an “environmental hazard” to avoid during Kirikou’s journey.
One thing that probably kept this movie off my radar until now is the fact that it contains…*thematic drums: Dun Dun DuNNNN*…. nudity.    That is to say, the kids of the village run around naked, and the women of the tribe are topless (no adult male nudity depicted, just little kids au naturale).  However, this does not make the movie eroticized in any way.  It merely presents the tribe-folk as they are, and in my mind, is part of the wonderful multi-cultural experience.

The sprogling giggled and commented on how the other kids got to run around “nudie-butts” like we did at Starwood, which opened up an excellent discussion of that lifestyle compared to our current American one.

After the second watching of the movie, our kid also really seemed to connect with a few of the lessons Kirikou learned in the process of helping out the Tribesfolk, who got themselves in trouble by acting selfish or thoughlessly.  The lessons throughout the story are not over-done, and merely presented in an easily believable way, allowing good opportunity to show the issues and offer short discussion of solutions before the characters work things out with Kirikou’s help.  This is benefited by the overall “african folktale” style of the movie, and really does make a great ‘teaching tool’, beyond being a wonderfully entertaining film.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Kirikou_and_the_Sorceress/60000485?trkid=188469

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181627/

No Comments »

We just watched a very, VERY awesome movie that I had rented via NetFlix, called Kirikou and the Sorceress.   I did not know anything about this film, but it showed up in a random sample of children’s/international  movies.   All I can say is, I highly recommend it for anyone wishing to step outside the usual Disney films and expose your family to a bit of multi-cultural flavor.

(Trailer is here)
The movie does a great job translating my pre-conceptions of a good African Folktale into an animated movie, and seems to remain really true to the culture.   The colours are bright and vivid in many scenes, which contrasts the barren landscapes shown in some other segments.  The storytelling is very engaging and can easily be broken up into a number of shorter mini-segments if you want to spark off an educational discussion regarding the plot.

The plot, without giving anything away, follows a small baby, Kirikou, who is born fully self-aware and speaking, and learns that an Evil sorceress has cursed the town and eaten all the men.   He goes through a series of adventures to save the various townsfolk, using his wits and child-like love to overcome the obstacles in his path.  Eventually, he confronts the Sorceress through several teachable moments, and important lessons, such as not letting mean people get to you, and understanding that the way someone treats others has more to do with them than those they are hurting.   Kirikou remains child-like and small of stature throughout the film, but is never “childish”.
For very young children, there are a very few slightly disurbing scenes, such as the initial meeting of the Sorceress being kinda scary (similar, I suppose, to the old Disney character, Maleficent, who was not a nice witch!), and later a weasil-like creature hunting smaller chipmonk-ish things.  However, these scenes are not overly threatening, or gory, and the tension is mostly felt through dramatic music and a close-up of angry faces/flashing of teeth.  I’ve seen worse on daytime TV commercials, but the engaging nature of the story means we all got drawn into the world much more than a TV commercial would, and thus jumped a bit at the sudden angry-sorceress scene (it only lasts a second or two). Sensitive children may also need to be spoken to about the fact that wild animals hunting in nature are not always nice, (though there is never any prey killed overtly on-screen), and the situation is presented more as an “environmental hazard” to avoid during Kirikou’s journey.
One thing that probably kept this movie off my radar until now is the fact that it contains…*thematic drums: Dun Dun DuNNNN*…. nudity.    That is to say, the kids of the village run around naked, and the women of the tribe are topless (no adult male nudity depicted, just little kids au naturale).  However, this does not make the movie eroticized in any way.  It merely presents the tribe-folk as they are, and in my mind, is part of the wonderful multi-cultural experience.

The sprogling giggled and commented on how the other kids got to run around “nudie-butts” like we did at Starwood, which opened up an excellent discussion of that lifestyle compared to our current American one.

After the second watching of the movie, our kid also really seemed to connect with a few of the lessons Kirikou learned in the process of helping out the Tribesfolk, who got themselves in trouble by acting selfish or thoughlessly.  The lessons throughout the story are not over-done, and merely presented in an easily believable way, allowing good opportunity to show the issues and offer short discussion of solutions before the characters work things out with Kirikou’s help.  This is benefited by the overall “african folktale” style of the movie, and really does make a great ‘teaching tool’, beyond being a wonderfully entertaining film.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Kirikou_and_the_Sorceress/60000485?trkid=188469

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181627/

No Comments »

We just watched a very, VERY awesome movie that I had rented via NetFlix, called Kirikou and the Sorceress.   I did not know anything about this film, but it showed up in a random sample of children’s/international  movies.   All I can say is, I highly recommend it for anyone wishing to step outside the usual Disney films and expose your family to a bit of multi-cultural flavor.

(Trailer is here)

The movie does a great job translating my pre-conceptions of a good African Folktale into an animated movie, and seems to remain really true to the culture.   The colours are bright and vivid in many scenes, which contrasts the barren landscapes shown in some other segments.  The storytelling is very engaging and can easily be broken up into a number of shorter mini-segments if you want to spark off an educational discussion regarding the plot.

The plot, without giving anything away, follows a small baby, Kirikou, who is born fully self-aware and speaking, and learns that an Evil sorceress has cursed the town and eaten all the men.   He goes through a series of adventures to save the various townsfolk, using his wits and child-like love to overcome the obstacles in his path.  Eventually, he confronts the Sorceress through several teachable moments, and important lessons, such as not letting mean people get to you, and understanding that the way someone treats others has more to do with them than those they are hurting.   Kirikou remains child-like and small of stature throughout the film, but is never “childish”.

For very young children, there are a very few slightly disurbing scenes, such as the initial meeting of the Sorceress being kinda scary (similar, I suppose, to the old Disney character, Maleficent, who was not a nice witch!), and later a weasil-like creature hunting smaller chipmonk-ish things. However, these scenes are not overly threatening, or gory, and the tension is mostly felt through dramatic music and a close-up of angry faces/flashing of teeth.

I’ve seen worse on daytime TV commercials, but the engaging nature of the story means we all got drawn into the world much more than a TV commercial would, and thus jumped a bit at the sudden angry-sorceress scene (it only lasts a second or two). Sensitive children may also need to be spoken to about the fact that wild animals hunting in nature are not always nice, (though there is never any prey killed overtly on-screen), and the situation is presented more as an “environmental hazard” to avoid during Kirikou’s journey.

One thing that probably kept this movie off my radar until now is the fact that it contains…*thematic drums: Dun Dun DuNNNN*…. nudity.    That is to say, the kids of the village run around naked, and the women of the tribe are topless (no adult male nudity depicted, just little kids au naturale).  However, this does not make the movie eroticized in any way.  It merely presents the tribe-folk as they are, and in my mind, is part of the wonderful multi-cultural experience.

The sprogling giggled and commented on how the other kids got to run around “nudie-butts” like we did at Starwood, which opened up an excellent discussion of that lifestyle compared to our current American one.

After the second watching of the movie, our kid also really seemed to connect with a few of the lessons Kirikou learned in the process of helping out the Tribesfolk, who got themselves in trouble by acting selfish or thoughtlessly.  The lessons throughout the story are not over-done, and merely presented in an easily believable way, allowing good opportunity to show the issues and offer short discussion of solutions before the characters work things out with Kirikou’s help.  This is benefited by the overall “african folktale” style of the movie, and really does make a great ‘teaching tool’, beyond being a wonderfully entertaining film.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Kirikou_and_the_Sorceress/60000485?trkid=188469

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181627/

No Comments »

I was tagged with an award-meme from Nettle.  The Tree of Happiness.   I like it a lot.

Here are the rules:
• Link to the person who gave the award to you.
• Post the rules on your blog.
• List six things that make you happy.
• Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
• Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
• Let the person who awarded you know when your entry is up.

Here are my six things:

This was actually kinda tough, as some of my first thoughts sounded really shallow compared to the usual postings here. But happiness is as happiness does, right?

• I’ll steal a line from everyone else here and say “My Family”.   Not just the people in it, though that is a HUGE part of what family is.  But also the stability and network of folks in my life.   Family here to me almost includes my circle of immediate friends, who I know I could call if there were ever a Disaster, and would help move the bodies.  /wink

• My land, and the opportunity to go hiking in wilderness not far from it.  While I’d love more trees in my own yard, the pastureland we have has plenty of opportunity for gardens, little wild weed-beds, and a soon-to-be-completed labyrinth.   While I do not have the Bhodi Tree to sit under, this land is just as enlightening.

• Music.   In all forms, and in many different ways, the appreciation of a lyrical score or primal drumbeat can cheer me up on the worst of days, or make me irritated if it goes against my mood.  Still, the fact that music can affect our emotions so deeply still makes me “happy” overall.  It crosses languages and touches lives.

• Roleplaying games.   Not really the single-player RPGs like Final Fantasy ##, though they were obviously fun to play.   But tabletop games like AD&D, or my current MMO World of Warcraft.   Getting a bunch of scattered people grouped up for some fantastic goal, stretching our creativity and living another life, is fun.  Beyond simple escapism though, such adventures are deeply Happy-making to my soul.  The creative muse thrives in such environments.

• The Internet.    Related I suppose to #1, #3, and #4,  the internet allows my network of friends, family, and game-kin to keep in touch regularly.   Communication is important for a social network.  Also, the internet is a rich source of amusement, entertainment, (and only occassional /facepalms).  Where else but a publically shared portal to the imagination could you find this or this?

• Life, the Universe, and Everything.    Yes, it’s a cheesy stolen line from a book, but it has validity.  As an optimist at heart, and for all the crap I see in the world in the form of people and events, there’s just too gosh darn much good here too.   Look up at a clear night sky, and the troubles of the day melt off you.  Happen to see a bit of trash dancing on the wind, and marvel at fluid dynamics and the cofficient μ (Mu).  See some cute random stranger smile on the bus, and thank Creation for making us all uniquely special.

Well, since Nettle, and those who tagged her already got the people I would betagging myself,  I’ll be forced to break the rules and non-tag the Readership of this Blog.  If I have to tag someone, I’ll make it: Meme, The Kitchen Witch, Varulv, Kelz, Carioca Witch, and Emily

2 Comments »

In keeping with my “music IS the muse of life” outlook, here is something that managed not only to bring me out of my recent funk, but I got the magical WOW-factor going, with tingly Awe from listening to it.  Found it after random web surfing for completely unrelated things.
(The best web-finds always seem to be serendipitous, don’t they?!)

I drove home from work happy, and proceeded to do dishes, and clean up the house with a smile, after dinner, to the great pleasant surprise of my wife.
This NEEDS to be listened to properly, with headphones or a quiet room.   It’s got some powerful subtle going on.
I also love the whispering “I wish I was special” near the end.
http://takingtigermountain.com/archives/113

Here’s the website for the group singing.
http://www.kolacny.com/en/index.htm

Enjoy!

I think what made this golden for me is not the subject matter of the song, so much as a brilliant cover of a potentially depressing song, turned right around into something full of Light and Love.  The juxtaposition is hard to ignore, and is what I think made it almost magical.

(PS:  Wren, you need to have Dorkus hear this.  I’m sure he’ll love it.)

1 Comment »