Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet

The movie is made as an impression of Ghibran... and when you talk about truth, its hard to find any person who gets acquainted with it. Now instead when u start visualizing truth it finds itself in a difficult position to present itself in a understandable format and this film does it perfectly ...

Oh my .. i couldn't control my tears in the end of the film not that its emotional but the expression of truth always gets answered without the senses ... thanks to the director who felt in his heart to make Ghibran on the screen and i am debt to him my lifetime for just this...

The best presentation of Ghibran till date..

Truth is always ONE... it just takes our time to realize it, coz its always there and we just don't see it ...

I have seen this film twice now. The first time was in Vancouver when most of the adults in the audience were silently weeping. The second time was at it's premiere in Lebanon; the author's birth country, where the reaction was the same. This film is not just about the insightful poetry nor is it about the stunning animation only. It is about how beautifully they compliment each other and how moving the result is. This is a film that touches the soul and the grief we bury so deep, yet somehow does so in a joyful way. Children and young adults will also enjoy the film as it is a movie that offers different things to different ages and different people. Congratulations to Salma Hayek, Roger Allers and the rest of the team for creating a movie which is unique.

In terms of film, there is a difference between an anthology and a collective set of work. Trick r Treat and The Twilight Zone: The Movie are anthology movies as each have a story is somewhat connected to the next and have reoccurring characters that might meet up. Fantasia is the prime example of a series of collected works. The same team may have been behind all the shorts, but they weren't meant to be published as a flowing set. Nothing about Fantasia's stories would confuse people into thinking that "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "The Nutcracker Suite" would be connected. Each story of Fantasia is it's own thing and is simply within the film because the filmmaker has chosen to put it in there.

One reason we don't see a lot of collective works set to one film is that a lot of people come to a movie to escape into one long story. That's not to say that there are people that like a set of short stories, but it's been proved by the studio system that a mainstream audience wants to see safer content. While you might find short film series' in a film festival, The Prophet is a collected work of artistic expression.

In a village within an unnamed middle eastern country, young speechless Almitra (played by Quvenzhané Wallis) is considered a trouble maker by her village as she is a compulsive thief and can make bird noises that allow her to communicate with seagulls. Her mother Kamila (played by Salma Hayek) tries to keep her under control now that she is a single mother (the fathers death is said to be the cause of Almitra loosing her speech) and working at a political prison. Finding school uninteresting, Almitra follows her mother to work and finds someone special behind a gate.

She finds an older but kind man Mustafa (played by Liam Neeson) who is an artist and a writer who has spent seven years under political arrest for writing controversial content that detest's the government. Mustafa and Almitra bond as the latter expresses his thoughts on life, love and freedom, as shown by segmented shorts that are usually just artsy expression of his essays. Two guardsmen (played by Alfred Molina and john Krasinski) are responsible for taking him to a ship that can return the artist to his home country, but the people may not be ready for him to leave.

Part of me really wanted to love The Prophet as it's rare to see a hand drawn animated movie and it really has passion for the essays as written by Lebenon artist Kahlil Gibran. The shorts are well done and look beautiful. It almost felt like that I was watching Fantasia again. But there's a problem; the movie tries to put them into a narrative.

I have nothing against this idea, but the movie's perspective is through the child and not the artist. This means that the story is simple and has been created as an attempt to be family entertainment. The content is tame, but I would think that most kids would find much of the artistic expression really boring.

What's weird is that I have nothing wrong with the actual story of a girl bonding with the artist and a village coming together as one. The voice acting is great and the animation looks nice. When the main narrative and the shorts are separated, their both magnificent. But when put together, it's tone is inconsistent, never finding a ground that can attract both children and adults.

Given I'm conflicted, I'll give this four collected works of Kahlil Gibran out of five purely on an artistic level. As inconsistent as the setting is, I still recommend the movie simple for it's animation. I'd say only see this if you really want to see another rare hand drawn movie.

beautiful.delicate. not surprising but precious as support of memories. touching. nice. a well known book who obtains a decent animation who translates, with grace, an universe. fascinating for its simplicity, it is a poem in image, a small drama, definition of emotions, hope, the things who defines each life, becoming its purpose. not great. but useful. for the not complicated story who preserves its universal message. for the basic drawing. for the splendid remember of truth in lovely manner. a portrait of life. a tale about freedom and dreams. and about the source of happiness. a film far to be special. but interesting. for the status of window to yourself.

It's difficult to simply judge the film without passing some judgment on the content of Gibran's poetry, which, in the context of the film, sounds even more like self-help advice. So those who like spiritualism, practical philosophy, and one man's interesting (then and still now) take on the world will probably find the content pretty awesome. For the rest of us, as I said, at times, it sounds a bit like self-help stuff, or new age stuff that is not new at all. Interestingly, a lot of the stuff about labor and work sounded very much like the stuff the Soviets would love (don't know if he was popular in the USSR).

The film attempts to tell the story of Mustafa, who is been on house arrest for seven years and is finally being released (deported back to his own country). The details of how he came to be in this other country are fuzzy, but it is clear that he is a poet, painter, and philosopher, and his ideologies have landed him in this bind. Mustafa befriends Almitra, who has stopped speaking since her father died a year ago. Almitra's mom does the housework for Mustafa under the (clumsy) watch of Halim (or Halil?) Everyone loves Mustafa. Townsfolk loves him. The cleaning lady and the kid love him. Even the guard loves him. There is a very clear distinction between good and evil here, which will appeal to younger children, and maybe not so much to the older crowd. So Mustafa is taken through the town (mistake!) to the boat that is supposed to take him back, but needless to say, things don't turn out that way at all. There is some strong imagery here (complete with a firing squad, but we only hear them fire).

I think most of the content is out of reach of most younger children. The stuff about love and life, about how parents do not own their children got through to the kids who were watching around me in the theater. I was surprised that even the youngest did not fall asleep, as some parts were just Mustafa speaking about stuff. I believe this s due to the amazing animation work by many great artists.

If Gibran's work does not interest you at all, I still would say this is a must see, if you like animation art. There's great stuff here. I dare say something for every taste and preference in terms of animation art.

All in all, it was a great film to see on the big screen. Animation was top notch and engaging (as the kids around me proved it). The story involving Almitra also appealed to the children, i think, though not to me as much. Mustafa's story is a classic case of denial of and persecution of freedom of speech; it is good to see something like this being made.