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028 52 1139729|bKanopy 
035    (OCoLC)908378159 
040    CaSfKAN|beng|erda|cCaSfKAN 
043    e-fr--- 
245 00 Quand Les Etoiles Rencontrent La Mer (When the Stars Meet 
       the Sea). 
264  1 [San Francisco, California, USA] :|bKanopy Streaming,
       |c2015. 
300    1 online resource (1 video file, approximately 78 min.) :
       |bdigital, .flv file, sound 
336    two-dimensional moving image|btdi|2rdacontent 
337    computer|bc|2rdamedia 
338    online resource|bcr|2rdacarrier 
344    digital 
347    video file|bMPEG-4|bFlash 
500    Title from title frames. 
518    Originally produced by California Newsreel in 1996. 
520    This film is one of the most magical to come out of Africa
       --hardly surprising since Madagascar is unlike anywhere 
       else on earth. Raymond Rajaonarivelo follows his epic 
       first film on the Malagasy liberation struggle, Taba Taba,
       with a very different, poetic film exploring the 
       relationship between traditional and modern concepts of 
       human freedom. He writes: "In French magie and image are 
       made from the same letters... In this film, there will be 
       Magic as long as man is dependent on mysterious forces 
       that overwhelm him, and Image when man has acquired enough
       power over space, time, and himself to no longer be afraid
       of his life." As the title suggests, Rajaonarivelo frames 
       his film around three visual symbols or leit motifs, sky, 
       sea and, by implication, the land marooned between them or
       life between birth and death. Set among the island's high 
       mesas, all the major characters dream of escaping this 
       parched interior to return to the oceanic mother, Rano 
       Masina or "sacred water" in Malagasy. Rajaonarivelo 
       characterizes life in the arid highlands, whether in the 
       superstitious village or the corrupt city, as 
       unremittingly predatory. A recurrent dream of a gently 
       breaking surf turning into pounding cattle hooves 
       symbolizes the human tension between infinite and 
       earthbound. Destiny, or vintana, plays a key role in the 
       belief system of the Merina people of these high plateaus.
       The day and month of a child's birth are believed to 
       determine its fate; a child born during a solar eclipse, a
       liminal time when sun and moon are at war, is believed to 
       possess especially destructive powers. Tradition demands 
       that its father must place it in a cattle pen where it 
       will be trampled to death. The hero of this film is such a
       child; his mother died in childbirth but he is rescued 
       from his fate by a young, childless woman and named Kapila,
       "the lame one," because of an injury he suffered in the 
       corral. He grows into a kind but frightened young man, in 
       effect, a stowaway in life, who supposedly can only bring 
       evil on those around him. His adoptive mother weaves the 
       shrouds in which the Malagasy bury, exhume and then rebury
       their ancestors and Kapila wears one until his ultimate 
       liberation. Parallel to his protective adopted mother, 
       Kapila encounters at key moments a wrathful, blind old 
       woman, who taunts him that he cannot avoid his destructive
       destiny and gives him a staff of vengeance. She may be a 
       bilo, a dead spirit possessing Kapila's body, or the ghost
       of one of his ancestors (perhaps his dead mother) or just 
       a mpaamosavy or sorceress. No doubt, she also represents a
       repressed part of Kapila's psyche, a shadow self, enraged 
       that society has stigmatized him as the source of 
       calamity. As in any quest narrative, Kapila must embark on
       a journey to discover his true identity and purpose in 
       life. Rajaonarivelo's crippled hero has resonances with 
       other myths, most obviously Sundjata and Oedipus. Kapila 
       leaves his mother and flies on the wings of a hawk over a 
       vast wasteland to his natal village. There he confronts 
       his father, The Poet, a madman who believes he can fly 
       away from human cruelty and his own guilt. He tells his 
       son: "Nature is as beautiful as a woman yet she has 
       something against us; she inhabits us and forces us to do 
       things we find revolting. Your powers too are only an 
       instrument of her will." The villagers, led by a 
       hypocritical Christian priest and a traditional diviner, 
       hunt Kapila like an animal. He survives again through the 
       love of another young woman, Fara, a beautiful, fair-
       skinned métisse, an outsider marked by difference like 
       himself. Disgusted with the cycle of hate, Kapila climbs 
       the mountain of the ancestors, of tradition, and throws 
       away the sorceress' cane, the source of his magical 
       powers. This unintentionally unleashes a purifying deluge 
       which destroys the village. In thus repudiating his 
       destiny Kapila has ironically fulfilled it. His and Fara's
       love and commitment to living literally and symbolically 
       annihilate the old cycle of destiny; the villagers by 
       clinging to their belief in destiny insure that it comes 
       true. In the closing sequence reprising the opening, 
       Kapila's father again tries to kill his son by stampeding 
       the cattle, but when they see Kapila embracing Fara they 
       turn upon his father trampling him to death. As he wished,
       he is cremated in the same corral where Kapila was wounded,
       freed at last to rejoin the wind and the stars. In the 
       film's final shot, Kapila and a visibly pregnant Fara at 
       last stand on the shore, the threshold between land and 
       water and between destiny and desire, the place where the 
       stars and the sea meet. Kapila has paradoxically 
       discovered his own identity only by rejecting his 
       connections with his past - his adoptive mother, his 
       father, even his ancestral homeland. His destiny has, in a
       sense, been to break free of destiny. He and Fara, 
       outsiders joined by love not custom, have given birth to a
       new world governed not by magic and fate but by love and 
       imagination. "This trim, accesible yet visionary film 
       fascinates in its unflinching realism and its spiritual 
       dimension questioning the role of chance in human life." -
       Variety "Kapila is a brooding Malagasy Oedipus, who makes 
       his way across the island's landscape exploring the 
       complex themes of exile and identity, love and hate." - 
       Lesley Sharpe, Barnard College. "A beautiful poetic 
       expression of an unexplored cinema, revealing that diverse
       mythologies have astonishing messages." - Le Nouvel 
       Observateur. 
538    Mode of access: World Wide Web. 
650  0 Superstition|zAfrica|zMadagascar|xFantasy|vDrama. 
650  0 Manners and customs|vDrama|zAfrica|zMadagascar. 
655  7 Feature films.|2lcgft 
700 1  Rajaonarivelo, Raymond,|efilm director. 
710 2  Kanopy (Firm) 
914    kan1139729