Synopsis
The film traces the destiny of Kapila, an outcast child who had been deemed by his fellow villagers to have supernatural powers of destruction, because of the timing of his solar eclipse birth.
When The Stars Meet The Sea
1996 ‘Quand les étoiles rencontrent la mer’ Directed by Raymond Rajaonarivelo
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“Fantatrao ve inona no mitranga rehefa mihaona ny kintana sy ny ranomasina?”
when i was small, my cousin spent one summer at our home and every night, she’d tell me tales and legends of Madagascar to lull me to sleep. i remember some of them making sense, and others so burlesque i’d simply accept them as truths. they shaped and expended my world while suspending my beliefs — somehow pointing a finger at a cemetery would make it fall off, and eating pork before swimming in the sea would make you drown, and perhaps forests were populated by dwarf men with hair so long it caressed the ground.
When the Stars Meet the Sea made me feel the same magic… -
Madagascar today finishes Africa for me. I was gonna go with my Fiji pick today instead but either I wasn’t paying attention or it changed but I can’t rent it from Vimeo in the US. I can get it on Kanopy but Kanopy isn’t linked to the libraries I have library cards to so that’s a bust. I’ll figure it out at some point.
I really like the tone of this one it feels very magical and it has the scope of some grand mythology while also feeling very personal. This ticks a lot of my boxes on how a good adventure story should go and it uses that scope to go a long way towards that. My only criticism…
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A baby is born in a small village during an eclipse, which is considered a bad omen, so his father leaves him in a herd of cows to be trampled to death. A young girl rescues him and brings him to a city where he grows up with one friend who is murdered one day for stealing something at a local market. The young man becomes angry and discovers his hate brings out powers over the weather and the murdered of his friend is killed by lightening. The young man returns to his home village to find his father and the whole village wants him dead, including his father. One young woman does love him, but the young man must defeat his father and release his hatred or else his powers will overtake him and destroy the entire village. It's a good story and competently told.
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What an opening! Maybe I was just engaged with it so much because I started the movie before I was ready, not knowing that the film was going to smash right into plot without any credits or establishing visuals, so I had to stare at the screen with bug-eyes trying to ready my cushions as quickly as I can. But I think it's because When the Stars Meet the Sea has an opening with tremendous mystery, forcing you to wonder what a solar eclipse, a man with a bundle and a stick, a crying baby, a corral of cows, and an on-looking girl have to do with one another. Then we learn and BAM is it a shocker. Then WHOOSH,…
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"The day you face your death, you will think about life."
It's on this sentence that the mother says to her adopted son that this excellent film can be summed up, at least for me. Of course the film has flaws, but for once, I don't want to dwell on them.
For me, it's a film that gives a lot of hope and love, Kapila, the protagonist, was born "cursed" but thanks to the love of his adoptive mother, was able to have a decent life. When he thinks death is approaching him (and death is actually approaching him), life always has its share of surprises in store for him.This film is poetry, which intertwines myths, beliefs and hopes.…
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This movie is great if you like films founded in myths and legends. Lots of threads of interpretation you can follow and decent characters.
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a lovely film, a real shame this was so hard to find. I screamed when I saw it on kanopy lol
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hard to rate because I was stoned enough to think “this theater is so dark I can’t see the movie” but the vibes rocked and the music was 10/10
BAM with wesley