The Prophet

I bought the ticket for this movie with very low expectations, but God was I wrong!

Soon after the opening scene, I realized that this was no ordinary movie. It's different from any other I've seen... and in so many ways: the mind-blowing messages; the brilliant blending of poetry, music, painting, and animation; and the way it propels one's imagination up to an entirely new level, all the time staying true to the soul of Khalil Gibran's artistic genius.

I highly recommend this exceptional movie to everyone who loves life and appreciates art in all its forms. Being a sensual mind opener, this masterpiece succeeds at making the viewer not only enjoy it, but enjoy existence as a whole too.

Hats off to Salma Hayek, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Yared, and of course Roger Allers.

If you are tired of all the pretentious movies out there, don't miss out on this simple one. After all, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, right?

9/10 (being the 'stingy with the grades' reviewer that I am)

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.

Kahlil Gibran's book The Prophet was an engaging mix of poetry, spirituality and philosophy musing upon subjects including love, food, and death. It's quite lovely.

While the book has no story or characters, someone decided to try and turn it into a movie. The basic premise is a young, mute girl and her mother meet an imprisoned philosopher the state is afraid of and travel a little with him. Along the way, he muses on subjects like love and food and death.

The framing story, done by the folks behind is very engaging, with likable characters and a simple but appealing story. The problem is the musings, each a Gibran poems animated by a different animator and either read by Liam Neeson (perfect voice for it) or turned into a pop song.

I hated most of these. The animation is rarely interesting enough to stand on its own, and because there are tons of pauses to let the animation breath, Gibran's words are unfocussed and lack their melodic rhythms. Also the songs are pretty dreadful.

The end result is an hour of entertaining drama broken up by tedious little animation of poems that stand better on their own.

Some people seem to have really enjoyed this, but I can't recommend it. Or at least, not unless you fast forward through all the poetry.

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.