Wednesday, September 2, 2020 — 11
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Animated classic ‘Mare’
now streaming in the U.S.
In
a
parallel
world,
moviegoers,
blissfully
unaware of the COVIDs and
the Faucis and the curves —
flattened or otherwise — are
settling down in front of the
silver screen at their favorite
theater for a rare Hungarian
treat.
Their throats and noses
gloriously
exposed,
these
parallel-people
are
being
dazzled by a tale of mythic
proportions:
haloed
heroes
travel across realms to save
fairy royalty from the clutches
of dragons with a strange
fixation on securing mates
of a decidedly non-draconic
nature (isn’t there any love
amongst the dragons?). But
these
inter-species
affairs
shouldn’t come as a surprise
— this is the 1981 animated
odyssey “Son of the White
Mare,” from the Hungarian
filmmaker Marcell Jankovics
(“Johnny Corncob”), and the
title is not exactly figurative.
The rest of us have to settle
for being dazzled on our
laptops.
“Mare”
premiered
almost 40 years ago, but
August
marked
its
first-
ever premiere in the United
States.
Originally
intended
for theaters, the switch was
made to local theaters’ virtual
platforms
(hosted
through
Vimeo) once the pandemic
hit. “Mare” is something of
a classic among animation
aficionados, the psychedelia
it
provides
showcasing
the
unique
and
limitless
possibilities of the animated
medium. Its U.S. premiere,
Vimeo or not, is long overdue.
Based on a 19th century
Hungarian epic poem and the
folktales of the nomadic Avar,
Scythian and Hunnic peoples,
“Mare” presents a simple story
with simple fairy-tale logic.
Once upon a time there was a
horse who gave birth to three
superhuman
boys
named
Treeshaker,
Stonecrumbler
and Irontemperer, so named
JACOB LUSK
Daily Arts Writer
ARBELOS FILMS
‘You’re basic!’ and its
gendered implications
The viral ballet video
we misunderstood
There are few eras more difficult
in a woman’s life than adolescence.
Within these years, every action
she takes is analyzed and critiqued,
not just by friends, parents and
teachers, but by society as a whole.
In the past few years, one common
critique has been directed at
young women: You’re basic. From
Snapchat filters to song lyrics,
“basic” has become a foundational
slang term for young people of
the 2010s. So what
does
the
term
mean?
For
many,
calling
someone
basic
recalls
the
Ugg boots-wearing,
pumpkin
spice
latte-drinking
girls
of 2015. Over time,
these “basic bitches”
have evolved beyond
their original form,
becoming the image
of anyone deemed a
follower. Or, for the
most part, any young
woman that dares to
have interests.
I want to take a
look back at history
— the year 1964,
to be exact. In the
music
industry,
this year would be
the catalyst to the
British Invasion, as The Beatles
performed on The Ed Sullivan
Show and threw America into a
frenzy. When you look at images
from this iconic moment, they do
not show the cliché Beatles fan
we might picture today. There
are no 54-year-old white men
in faded ringer tees lamenting
over the death of “real music.”
In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
“Beatlemania” was characterized
by screaming, crying, obsessing
teenage girls. Yet this did nothing
to discredit the band, and they
are still remembered today as
one of the greatest groups of all
time. Ironically, today a teen
girl wearing a Beatles shirt is
usually scoffed at by exactly
that cliché fan. And if they can’t
name the title of the first demo
off of a scrapped album that John
Lennon wrote in 1963 well, then,
they can’t even call themself a
fan.
This
disdain
for
alleged
imposters
stretches
beyond
popular
music.
Teen
girls
listening to Led Zeppelin are try-
hards. Electronic fans are festival
hoes. Rap fans are bandwagoners.
Name any genre and it conjures
the
face
of
someone
who
represents
something
wrong
with the fans of that style, and
all too often, that face is young
and feminine. And all too often,
it is the men of a particular
fanbase who scoff at their female
counterparts as if they are of less
worth and credibility than them.
You may be thinking, “Hey,
it’s really not that deep.” And
in some ways, you would be
correct. Calling someone basic
has become so common the word
barely has meaning anymore, and
there are much more harmful
words and actions thrust at
women — so many, that talking
about them could become an
entire anthology. But ridiculing
any interests of a young growing
girl can be impactful in ways
beyond just forcing them to spend
summers listening to sad indie
white boys instead of Megan
Thee Stallion. Everybody has an
individuality complex: the desire
to be special, to be one-of-a-kind.
To be able to say “I liked that
show years ago” or “I wore that
shirt first” and somehow derive
superiority
from
their taste.
This superiority often manifests
itself as internalized misogyny,
actively rejecting femininity or
what are traditionally considered
feminine interests because they
inherently see womanhood and
everything associated with it as
less than.
At least in my life, dealing
with internal misogyny can be
an everyday battle, especially
when many older generations
of women base their worldview
in it. I buried my nose in books
and barely brushed my hair as a
child because I thought caring
about looks would mean I was
superficial and stupid. And these
mantras
never
end.
Women
should cover up to make a man’s
life easier. Women shouldn’t have
ambition
because
that
hurts
their
family. Women need
to wear dresses and
makeup and keep
their hair long to
be pretty. Women
are
forced
into
little
boxes
that
others
construct
for them in order to
be accepted, and in
order to preserve
such a system, they
must
constantly
have their worth
attacked.
I
have
a
radical
request:
Just
let
women
live.
Someone’s
intelligence
and
worth as a person
is not determined
by the culture they
consume
or
produce.
Being
“basic” does not exist. Whether
one views themself as alternative
or mainstream or somewhere
in between, there are a million
other people in the same position
as them. There are enough forces
acting against the interests of
women, we don’t need to drag
each other down as well. Watch
“Love Island” with your friend
in the Slipknot shirt or throw
on your Air Force 1’s to go see
that new foreign film with the
girl from class. Individuality is
a waste of time when there is a
world of interests to be tried out
and different people with whom
to engage. If all else fails, get a
group together and stand in your
local record store comparing
One Direction to The Beatles;
sometimes it’s nice to just have a
laugh.
Daily Arts Columnist Samantha
Della Fera can be reached at
samdf@umich.edu.
SAMANTHA DELLA FERRA
Daily Arts Columnist
because they can shake trees,
crumble stones and temper
iron with their bare hands,
et cetera, et cetera. At one
point an adolescent
Treeshaker says to
his
equine
mom,
“An old man told me
to ask you to nurse
me for seven more
years and then I
will be strong!” and
she just goes with
it. And in classic
mythological
fashion,
every
narrative
obstacle
occurs three times
(the
third
time
usually being the
charm).
But
these
unsophisticated
story beats are easy
to forgive — myths
are usually fluid,
often
simple
and
almost always silly
at their core (even
when
plumbing
grimdark
depths).
“Mare” is a story
of
mythic
logic
but
psilocybin
proportions.
From
beginning
to
end,
color,
sound and shape crash in
a
phantasmagoric
display,
sampling the very best of
French
classic
“Fantastic
Planet,”
the
Beatles-driven
“Yellow
Submarine”
and
that
weird
alcohol-induced
trip in “Dumbo.” The art
style
is
simple
—
largely
solid colors and flat shapes
— but in motion the setting
and
characters
twist
and
shimmer and transmogrify. In
one particularly remarkable
segment, colors pulsate as a
horse’s womb enlarges into
a great cosmic tree only to
morph back into that same
horse’s vulva as a little baby
boy pops out and shifts into
a panorama of the night sky
whose stars transform into
the sweat and tears of the
proud mare as she licks her
newborn colt.
The miracle of childbirth!
Jankovics
matches
the
psychedelic
display
with
expert choices in art direction
that marry myth to modernity
— the sinister dragons that
Treeshaker and his brothers
must vanquish are not the
scaly reptiles of yore but are
fashioned
after
machines
of war and cyclopean cities.
These flourishes make the
age-old
story
fresh
and
interesting, but unfortunately
these modern touches don’t
extend too deep, as “Mare”
peddles
in
the
geriatric
gender politics required of
almost any mythos story, with
damsels simultaneously being
in
distress
and
screwing
over
the whole world
in
Eve-fashion.
Treeshaker
fashioning
a
sword
from
another
man’s
beard
and
swooshing
it
around
between
his legs isn’t too
subtle
either,
but
can
one
really
expect
an
adaptation
of myth to not
feature
heavy
phallic imagery?
Animation
is
often
at
its
best
when
it
accomplishes
something
live
action
cannot.
“Mare” is a firm
example of such
a film, a visual
journey
that
should
satisfy
mythology
nuts,
cartoon geeks and anyone
looking for a brief sojourn in a
parallel world.
ZOE PHILLIPS
Daily Arts Columnist
The rest of us have
to settle for being
dazzled on our
laptops. “Mare”
premiered almost
40 years ago, but
August marked its
first-ever premiere
in the United
States.
The world first saw Anthony
Mmesoma Madu dance back in
June — his teacher and studio-
founder Daniel Owoseni Ajala
posted a video of the 11-year-old
student turning and leaping in
the rainy outdoors of his native
Nigeria. The boy’s bare feet
propelled him off the muddy
ground through an impressive
combination of classical ballet,
and the clip soon went viral. In
the United States and Europe,
professional dancers with large
followings
on
social
media
reposted the video and offered
words of admiration for Madu’s
tenacity. New York City Ballet
superstar Tiler Peck invited him
to join her as a guest on her daily
IGTV ballet classes. Viola Davis
posted the video to her Instagram,
and Nigerian journalist Fade
Ogunuro announced over Twitter
that she planned to pay for the
rest of Madu’s academic expenses
through the end of college. Earlier
this month, the American Ballet
Theatre
Jacqueline
Kennedy
Onassis School offered him a
full scholarship to their virtual
summer
program,
including
additional funding for his internet.
The news coverage started
quickly. BBC, NPR, Washington
Post, Good Morning America,
Reuters, People Magazine and
TIME make up only a partial list
of publications that covered the
story. This attention makes sense;
Madu’s is a tale of opportunity in
a world currently stricken by loss.
The dance industry in particular
has
already
hemorrhaged
millions, if not billions, of dollars
in the wake of waves of COVID-
19 and there continues to be no
clear date for the safe reopening of
theaters and performance spaces.
When the ABT JKO School’s
director
Cynthia
Harvey
announced Madu’s scholarship,
she touched on this context.
“Here,
we’re
complaining
about not being able to open
our buildings,” she told the The
Cincinnati Enquirer. “But in that
video, I saw a boy who was a
perfect example of the tenacity
someone can have when they
have love and a dream. It was
immediately obvious how much
determination he had.”
Madu’s work ethic can indeed
feel humbling in an environment
stricken
with
complaints
surrounding
the
discomfort
of dancing in one’s own air-
conditioned living room. The
imagery of his dancing in the
rain seems to have rekindled
the
dwindling
motivation
of
many
dancers
currently
training at home while living
on tiny unemployment checks.
Nevertheless, all of this attention
feels narrow: If this student
is truly the world’s paragon of
tenacity, why did he have to
become a viral sensation to even
be noticed?
Socioeconomic
accessibility
in ballet became a revitalized
conversation topic this summer.
In the wake of a global reckoning
with systemic racism, activists
continue
to
push
ballet’s
leadership to acknowledge and
rectify the deep roots of elitism
and white supremacy upon which
this art form was built. Even
today, FiveThirtyEight predicts
that a ballerina in training may
spend up to $100,000 before
landing a professional contract
(minus the female-only pointe
shoe category, the number is
still close to $70,000). As the
pressure mounts for rich, white
dance institutions to increase
their support for communities
cut off by such insurmountable
price tags, Madu’s story offers
a dangerously easy narrative of
change — a young prodigy finally
given the opportunity his talent
deserves. But this narrative only
includes the story of one student;
the story would be exponentially
more powerful if we sought to
include the empowerment of
Madu’s classmates as well as other
underserved communities across
the globe.
Madu’s studio, the Leap of
Dance Academy, is a prime
example
of
organizations
deserving
of
such
financial
support
and
community
validation. The founder, Daniel
Owoseni Ajala, is a self-taught
dancer with a dream of expanding
dance education for his own
community.
He
teaches
his
students from his own apartment
and doesn’t charge for lessons.
In addition to dance, he provides
academic tutoring and a weekly
meal. As Madu’s video made the
rounds on social media, Ajala
received an influx of donations
and an invitation to ABT’s two-
week teacher training program,
but these parts of the story were
left out of the vast majority of
coverage. Instead, the articles and
video featurettes focused solely on
Madu’s talented turns and jumps
— almost all of them mentioned
the boy’s talent as a motivational
symbol for a world crushed by an
ongoing pandemic. Apparently,
students and communities like
Madu’s only become relevant
with a global health crisis as the
backdrop.
I have a radical
request: Just
let women live.
Someone’s
intelligence and
worth as a person is
not determined by the
culture they consume
or produce.
Son of the White
Mare
Cinema Lamont/
Vimeo
Arbelos Films
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
GOOD MORNING AMERICA