Kirikou and the Sorceress

Kirikou is an African baby boy who can talk, run like road runner and an indefatigable problem solver. The story feels African; a village is being terrorised for unknown reasons (because no-one before Kirikou has bothered to find out why) by an all powerful sorceress and her robotic fetishes. The men have disappeared, the water dried up and the sorceress is demanding the village women’s gold jewelry and trying to kidnap the kids. Kirikou sets out on his self appointed task to solve the village’s problems, running from place to place only stopping long enough to ask a barrage of questions and solve the up-to-now insolvable problems. The film has a happy ending which will take you by surprise.

The style of the drawings and story telling is largely African (though some squirrels owe more to Disney than Dahomey). The audience is intended to be children and the showing I went to on a Sunday lunchtime at the Pent House was almost 50% children, who, I assume from the lack of noise, must have enjoyed it. But like good children’s books, adults can enjoy it on both the child’s level and from an adults point of view. But if you are the sort of person who is uncomfortable looking at drawings of naked breasts and naked baby boys then avoid this film.

There is a sequel called ‘Kirikou and the Wild Beasts’.

Ian’s Rating: 4/5