Wednesday, May 5, 2010

"Kirikou and the Sorceress"

A small movie thought: we watched an animated cartoon, some French extra credit for Leslie's class... yes a foreign film. Set in Africa. A small boy of a village bests an evil sorceress. This evil sorceress has many minions, which are called "fetishes" in religions like Animism which believe in souls belonging to inanimate objects. This sorceress's fetishes all have a quality in common (besides them all being inanimate objects); they were also all machines. Odd, considering the pre-industrial nature of all the other movie's drawings. The villagers wear swaths of colorful fabrics, carry water in jugs, wield spears. The sorceress commands machines on mechanized wheels and submarine-style periscopes to spy on enemies. What was this linking, or camaraderie, between the magic and the scientific technology? Aren't these two spheres and their respective bailiwicks considered opposed to one another? Not in this movie. Magic and mechanized technology are cohorts in cahoots against the villagers. In the end, the small boy wins out over these forces through virtues like courage and compassion as well as common sense. This "triumph" gives me mixed feelings. I am not sure if I should buy into the values, or raise more questions. Now, I cant think of any more questions to ask, or anything more to say.

4 comments:

  1. Cohorts in cahoots!! Brilliant - I love it!! I have a question though, Was there an epic battle at the end where everything comes together for the boy? Did he win by outsmarting the robots? After all, robots don't have emotions and without emotions robots stand no chance to a little boy.

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  2. Interesting, no battles actually occurred: instead, the little boy tunnels underground to avoid the fetish-watch, and learns of the origin of sorceress's powers. Which is thorn in the back of her neck. He painfully removes it. She screams and then becomes human again. The little boy asks her to marry him, but she refuses since hes like a week old and two inches tall. She, however, agrees to kiss him at which point he turns into a fullgrown human and they live happily ever after with the villagers.
    This little boy/man didnt have a lot of emotions though either.

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  3. Robots, a sorceress, and a magical baby boy/grown man... and no battles? That's wack.

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