Greetings again from the darkness. An animated, artistic, philosophical parable based on a 1923 book from a Lebanese poet … it's as if the filmmakers went out of their way to make sure most everyone would be turned off by some aspect. Instead, director Roger Allers delivers a beautiful and thoughtful representation of nine of the 26 stories from Kahlil Gibran's influential best-seller.

The story revolves around Mustafa, an artist and poet who was exiled seven years earlier when his words were deemed harmful to the local regime. Mustafa is informed that he will be granted his freedom to return home, and as he is escorted through town, Mustafa periodically delivers his insightful and inspiring words to the people of the land. These make up the 9 segments (Freedom, Children, Marriage, Work, Love, etc) within the movie, and each of these segments is the unique work of a different renowned artist/director. The artistic style and presentation varies between each segment, and some employ the use of music (Damien Rice, Glen Hansard).

As Mustafa recites the words of Gibran, the individual segments unfold with the artistry of each director. These blend well with the overall story which also features Mustafa's housekeeper and her young daughter (who initially doesn't speak). The voice acting is top notch thanks to Liam Neeson (Mustafa),Salma Hayek (the housekeeper),Quvenzhane Wallis (Almitra),John Krasinski (a lovesick guard),Alfred Molina (Sergeant),and Frank Langella (regime leader). Mr. Neeson is especially effective as the soothing voice of Gibran's words.

This was evidently a pet project of Salma Hayek, who also is Producer of the film. She wisely enlisted director Roger Allers, who has ties to Disney and the hugely popular The Lion King. The film is Disney-esque in its approach, but is certainly not aimed at kids. It's really a blend of the segmented structure of Fantasia, the adult-themed style of Watership Down, and the philosophical meanderings of Gandhi.

Gibran writes that "all work is noble", and the work of these filmmakers certainly is. As with any poetry or philosophy, one must be receptive to the message and willing to be inspired. If not, it's merely "love and flowers".

A beautiful little animated film based on the poetry of Kahlil Gibran. The film doesn't, as I supposed, reflect the actual life of Gibran in its plot, nor does it depict the plot of the original book in its main storyline. That was created for the film. A poet named Mustafa (voiced by Liam Neeson) is being held under house arrest for his writings, which the government fears are an incitement to revolution. He is set to be released, and is led through the town toward a ship on which he will leave. As he goes through town, he converses with people and speaks the poetry of the original work. Over this poetry, several different animators (the most famous of whom are Nina Paley, Bill Plympton and Tomm Moore) interpret the text with their own animations. The wraparound segment, directed by The Lion King's Roger Allers, is CGI of the type seen in the Disney short Paperman. It's a little clunky, but it's pretty. The central character of the film is a little mute girl named Almitra (when she finally does speak, as one might expect she does, she is voiced by Quvenzhane Wallis),who follows Mustafa on his trip through the town. She's extremely cute and well animated. Her mother is played by Selma Hayek, who is largely responsible for the project in the first place. John Krasinski, Alfred Molina and Frank Langella also co-star. The animated segments are mostly abstract, and mostly pretty great. I saw the film mostly for the Tomm Moore segment. It's hard to pick a favorite. Perhaps Joann Sfar's segment, which is of a tango over the poem "On Marriage." Definitely recommended.

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.