Quote:
Originally Posted by Firecrackker
One of my favorite books. Heard mixed things about the movie. I'll have to check it out first.
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I caught it in theaters back in September.
I'm definitely not surprised that the reviews were mixed. My own impression of the film was very mixed. (For the record, I'm not familiar with the original work at all.)
After seeing it, I wasn't sure if this film even should have had a narrative as a framing device for the various poems (though my understanding is that the book does?). While some are given fairly natural and smooth transitions, others just seem awkwardly wedged into the story. The main story itself is serviceable--not bad, per se, but far from great. Honestly, though, it seemed they tried to make it appeal to both children and adults, but somehow failed at both. For example, much of the writing comes off as overly simplistic and infantile, yet the whole political climate in the setting of the film is not given enough contextualization that would allow the average child to understand what's really going on. I mean, I think the overarching story that they have could have worked, but it just wasn't executed all too well. Perhaps it would have worked better had the poet been the viewpoint character instead of the little girl.
As for the animation I must say that the cel-shaded CGI of the main story segment bothered me almost the entire time. It really was quite clunkly and an eyesore against the nicely illustrated backgrounds. Honestly, if they didn't have enough of a budget, I would have rather seen anime-like animation with low frame-rates, with just the key sequences getting money thrown at it. There are plenty of ways to make limited animation look great and even dynamic. (Just look no further than any of Masaaki Yuasa's TV projects.)
As for the nine poem segments by the various animators, I was very impressed with them for the most part. They were all beautiful in their own way, and while they mostly seemed like very literal manifestations of the poems, I think they worked quite well. Some definitely worked better than others, but all of them are worth seeing just for their sheer beauty. Most of them consist of Liam Neeson reciting the poems, with some nice music to go along with them. A couple of the poems, however, were adapted into songs (basically, the poems became the lyrics to the songs), and I honestly think I would have preferred it if most of them were adapted into songs, with just a couple of them being recited. The highlight for me was definitely Tomm Moore's segment, "On Love," which featured music by Lisa Hannigan and Glen Hansard. Simply mesmerising. Honestly, I'd purchase the Blu-ray just for that segment alone.
Overall, I think it is worth seeing if you get the chance, just to see the poem segments by the various artists. I'll definitely get the BD when the price is right ($22.99 is still a bit too steep), though it's likely I'll skip the story segment most of the time.
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Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. Universal: February 2, 2016
Amazon.com is erroneously listing it as Region Free. I bought confidently, but it won't play in my Region B player.
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