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Heathen Family Classics

Summertime isn't a big movie watching season for us, but I have a moment to do this and someone asked. Here's a list of our favorite Heathen Family Films - and by that I mean movies that are both fun to watch and family appropriate - having worthy stories and being basically compatible with Heathen values. None of these are about the Germanic folkway specifically, but they do show other traditional folkways and human drama in a respectful and sensible manner.

Please keep in mind that we are not big fans of mainstream media. The pace of these films is slower, and they are more rich in realistic cultural, emotional, and moral content than some kids may be used to. Like the old Family Classics they are best watched as a family, and worth watching together. Some are subtitled, but none are dialog heavy, they are all easy enough to follow. They probably won't work as electronic baby-sitting type programming, but they are definitely kid-tested and approved - all these are favorites we can watch over & over, and appropriate for all ages. However, they may be something of an acquired taste...

In no particular order:

Kirikou and the Sorceress - the first animated film ever made about Africa that features human protagonists instead of talking animals, this one is inspired by folk art & stories. Directed by Michael Ocelot who made some fun music videos for people like Bjork. As colorful, exciting, and delightful as the best mainstream animation, but philosophically richer. The people and other animals are naturalistically depicted, the story art and music are vibrant and upbeat - a really fun film. There's a sequel, Kirokou & the Wild Beasts, and I've heard there is a video game based on that one, to cash in on the first film's massive popularity in Scandinavia. (Realistic depictions of characters who wear traditional African dress - ie semi-nudity has supposedly prevented the theatrical release of these films in the US & UK)

Bashu, the Little Stranger - a war orphan searches for his place in modern Iran, finding refuge with a family geographically and culturally distant from his own. As you might guess the drama is sometimes a little intense, but ultimately warm and life-affirming. there is a lot of warmth and humor too, and neat glimpses of traditional family and farm life. (The family imitating hawk cries to scare away hawks is especially endearing) . (subtitled)

Children of Heaven - Beautiful and moving Iranian made family film. A little boy looses his sister's shoes, and to keep this small tragedy a secret from their troubled parents the two children devise a clever relay-race system of getting through the day sharing one pair of shoes. The family dynamic and domino effect of one small mistake leading to snowballing consequences seem immediately familiar and true to life for me. One of those movies that I forgot was subtitled, because the story and characters were so vivid and engaging. A truly charming film of devotion and determination overcoming any obstacles.

Director Majid Majidi also made another family film, Baran, about young children working in a construction site, one accidentally gets the other fired, and friendship and complications ensue. Both films are highly recommended, featuring great stories told in very realistic and believable settings, being both more true to life and more uplifting than what is usually found in mainstream media. Children of Heaven is more accessible for extremely young children, Baran doesn't feature anything objectionable, but the subtly of the story is probably better for kids over 5.

King of Masks - An orphan girl accidentally passes for a boy in 1930's China, and is adopted by an aged street performer. The classic kind of child-perseveres-against-extreme-difficulty film in which people learn lessons of love and tolerance. Brings up issues of gender and class, poverty and jail, which you might enjoy or might choose to avoid. (subtitled)

Cave of the Yellow Dog, & Story of the Weeping Camel - Two GREAT films by German-educated mongolian director Byambasuren Davaa, both were shot on location and feature all Mongolian casts, and wonderful traditional sensibilities, beautiful vistas, and moving stories.

Cave of the Yellow Dog weaves together the modern story of a young Mongolian girl and her ups and downs with her nomadic herder family and pet dog, and a parallel story, a folk tale being told by her grandmother about another dog. The combination of a fascinating highly realistic portrayal of daily life of nomads with the charm of seeing details of naturalistic family interactions that are immediately familiar and resonant to anyone who has a family, the balance of ancient and modern, and the emotional and visual richness of both these movies make them extremely satisfying.

The Story of the Weeping Camel has a similar device - the re-telling of a folk tale while the characters live through a parallel modern experience. A new-born camel is rejected by it's mother and the family to belongs to must find a musician to play a certain song to remedy the situation. Both feature an element of "magical realism" - folk belief is presented together with other details of culture and story, and the viewer is left to decide what the outcome means. Both films are visually stunning and emotionally engaging.

Himalaya - Directed by Eric Vali, set and filmed in Tibet. The story of a highland community's yearly journey to trade salt they have mined from the mountains for wheat they need to survive the winter, and the complications ensuing from a clash between an older leader and a young upstart. Also features magical realism - folkloric practice is shown without editorial comment, leaving the viewers to make of it what they will. Sensitive and interesting portrayal of cultural details such as sky burial in which the beloved dead are dismembered and given to scavenger birds. Exciting and frightening depiction of the harrowing journey, and loads of beautiful landscapes.

Little House on the Prairie series - I grew up enjoying the tv show, this is not that but a Disney adaptation that sticks closer to the books, and so features more intense action than the TV show. The small amount of Christian content is put in a good context.

Spirited Away - Japan's Studio Ghibli makes some great films; Disney-like image quality, but with a little more emotional depth and more traditional world view. Spirited Away is a coming of age type story of a spoiled brat who gains strength of character while trying to rescue herself and her parents after they get lost in a bath house for spirits. Pretty and endlessly amusing.

Kiki's Delivery Service - another Ghibli classic, this time a young witch learns self-reliance by setting off on her own in the wide world, making friends and gaining skill along the way. Also tons of fun, funny, and sweet.

Russian Fairy Tales - Vassilisa the Beautiful / the Snow Maiden / the Day the Earth Froze / Sadko - My girl loves Russian fairy tales, I live Russian cinema, so we collect these Soviet and Finnish productions of folk stories. The effects are old-fashioned but delightful, the costumes and sets are cool, the acting is theatrical but highly entertaining, and the stories are familiar and genuinely sweet and wonderful.

I recommend anything in this genre for Heathen Families, but if you want just one sample, Sadko is probably the best of the lot for it's sweeping epic quality - big story, larger-than-life true-hearted folk hero, fantastic monsters and locations, it has it all! (The scene in the palace with crazy entertainers dancing on their hands with faces painted on the butts of their pants, beautiful girls, gigantic casks of beer, and enormous carved roof beams is another classic scene that, for heathens kind of makes you wonder "how did they film my dreams?!?" My girl asked to re-watch it like 50 times.)

The Day the Earth Froze comes a close second, a very entertaining re-telling of the highlights of the Kalevala. The characters and effects are wonderful, the pace is dreamy but rich with incident, and the content intense enough to be rousing but never too intense for the littlest ones. Also, let me say there is no need to worry about the cold-war propaganda / nationalism aspect of these movies. They are generally pro-traditional Russian culture without being political in the tedious modern sense.

The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs (and other German Fairy Tales, if I could find any...) Honestly, on my own I might have gotten bored with the Devil w/t3gh - it's b&w, the effects are on the level of what you might see in a decent puppet theater, and the acting is BROAD, it's a bit over-loaded with slapstick. But I got into it because it had my girl entranced. I WISH I could find a live puppet show of something similar with good heathen style, but children's theater seems overly focused on "modernism" and spoofing and deconstructing classic folk tales rather than just presenting them as if they have inherent merit. For kids who haven't been acclimated to mainstream media with shiny computer graphics, hyper-paced editing, and over-worked noisy sound-tracks this kind of oldey-timey theatricality seems normal and amusing, and after a while the vaudevillian goof-ball quality grew on me too.

Prince Achmed - The first ever full length animated film just happens to be a wonderful fairy tale, an story from the Arabian Nights, illustrated in paper silhouette style by beloved German artist Lotte Reiniger. Some of the imagery is colorful, but the pace and style are very much in keeping with the richly artistic handcrafted quality of silent era cinema. Dreamy and fine.

The Snow Walker - Canadian production of a live action wilderness adventure in which a hot-shot city bred pilot is stranded in the cold with a sickly young Inuit woman. Like most wilderness survival movies the story emphasis is on the characters coming to terms with each other, and their own strengths & weaknesses, and the idea that perseverance, determination, awareness and wisdom vital both to surviving difficulty and being deserving of survival.

OK, baby's awake, more next time...

bugs & mating

Once again we got some bugs in the mail. Good stuff. We got ladybugs this time, without the plastic habitat, as I already have loads of plastic jars and such in my pantry. I'm sure they'll be fine without a molded volcano. Here's a nice site with some coloring pages and and such.

Ladybug projects

And here's an even better site - Isabella Rossolini's Green Porno is available for free online, how cool is that???? I'm not sure if you want to let your kids watch them (I let mine, but your taste in educational films may very) but if you are a little rusty in the bio department (like most of my friends seem to be) or a little crazy for hand-made movies (like I am) there are worse things you could be watching, that's for certain. Enjoy!