(no subject)
Yay, my Sophisticated Assuit is shipping today!!! From Dahlal to me, not from Egypt to Dahlal, even! So I could have it in time for the contest after all. I might stick with the holographic baladi dress though, it's pretty damn eye-catching. Choices, choices. For some reason, Dahlal seems to think that I have paid in full for the dress, which I haven't, so I will give them a call today to sort that out. I note that it has gone up in price, I'm glad I ordered it when I did. (which was last April, wow, I've been waiting a long time!)
Najmat's class last night didn't leave me in too much pain, though my left hip feels like somebody extracted half the muscles that are supposed to be there, because it just wasn't working right. Strangely, doing the exercises recommended by my chiropractor last night has resulted in feeling much better today. Fancy that!
I watched a wonderful, wonderful, precious movie last night, The Adventures of Prince Achmed. It's a silent film from 1926 made entirely with silhouettes of paper cut-out figures, an effect a bit like shadow puppetry, and each scene is an amazingly detailed little moving painting. It is apparently the oldest surviving feature length animated film. The plot is fairly pointless and relatively slow, but the plot isn't the point, the images are. I liked that the horrible ugly witch who you would expect to be evil was really a nice person who helps young lovers. Her battle scenes with the demons had great glee and humor in them. Here she is fighting the evil magician:
And here is Prince Achmed with his true love, Peri Banu:
You can tell they are in China by the shape of the mountains behind them--that was another neat thing about the film, as the characters traveled around, the backgrounds took on the characteristics of the artwork associated with that region. That's her flying bird suit on the ground. Prince Achmed's mechanical flying horse is somewhere offscreen.
Some of the charicatures of the local people had me saying hmm, especially coming out of Germany at that time, but then again, taking the Emperor of China as an example, I'm sure I've seen charicatures of royalty in Chinese artwork that were just as exaggerated and unflattering. And Lotte Reiniger, the filmmaker, and her husband were considered personas non grata by the Nazis, so that's got to count for something. I think the Arab figures in the film are based on the artwork of the Akhenaten period, with their long sloping faces and elongated crania. All in all, I recommend it.
Najmat's class last night didn't leave me in too much pain, though my left hip feels like somebody extracted half the muscles that are supposed to be there, because it just wasn't working right. Strangely, doing the exercises recommended by my chiropractor last night has resulted in feeling much better today. Fancy that!
I watched a wonderful, wonderful, precious movie last night, The Adventures of Prince Achmed. It's a silent film from 1926 made entirely with silhouettes of paper cut-out figures, an effect a bit like shadow puppetry, and each scene is an amazingly detailed little moving painting. It is apparently the oldest surviving feature length animated film. The plot is fairly pointless and relatively slow, but the plot isn't the point, the images are. I liked that the horrible ugly witch who you would expect to be evil was really a nice person who helps young lovers. Her battle scenes with the demons had great glee and humor in them. Here she is fighting the evil magician:
And here is Prince Achmed with his true love, Peri Banu:
You can tell they are in China by the shape of the mountains behind them--that was another neat thing about the film, as the characters traveled around, the backgrounds took on the characteristics of the artwork associated with that region. That's her flying bird suit on the ground. Prince Achmed's mechanical flying horse is somewhere offscreen.
Some of the charicatures of the local people had me saying hmm, especially coming out of Germany at that time, but then again, taking the Emperor of China as an example, I'm sure I've seen charicatures of royalty in Chinese artwork that were just as exaggerated and unflattering. And Lotte Reiniger, the filmmaker, and her husband were considered personas non grata by the Nazis, so that's got to count for something. I think the Arab figures in the film are based on the artwork of the Akhenaten period, with their long sloping faces and elongated crania. All in all, I recommend it.