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carbonicgirlThere's a computer animated movie about Krishna.The 3D animation in
Krishna: aayo natkhat nadlal looks... well, creepy beyond belief. Seriously, do watch the
Krishna video previews (there are four of them) linked above. So much about the movie looks great: the music sounds great, they got the world's cutest child voice for Krishna, Kamsa is appropriately scary, and there is much stealing of women's clothing. But that animation! Ugh! The lack of facial expressions, the stiff, zombie-like movements, the utter lack of any sense of joy, spontaneity, or sensuality in the Krishna/Radha scenes... Boo. In this version, apparently Krishna knows only one dance, and that is The Robot.
Apparently this project was inspired by the success of 2005's two unbelievably awesome and adorable 2D animated movies:
- Hanuman, the first full-length animated feature ever produced in Bollywood.
- Krishna: The Birth, which is only 75 minutes long, and is apparently first in a series of three additional upcoming Krishna animated movies. (The titles are Krishna The Makhan Chor, Krishna in Vrindavan, and Krishna Kills Kamsa for the alliteration win.)
Both of these movies are adorably cute, and yet both of these movies suffer from atrociously low animation quality. Okay, maybe I shouldn't be too harsh, because in-house animation is a "new" thing in Bollywood, and the technology is still rough around the edges. At least
Hanuman and
Krishna: The Birth made up for their low animation quality by overloading on cuteness, good storytelling, awesome music, and that kick-arse music video with cute little kids dancing around in Hanuman masks.
Krishna: aayo natkhat nadlal looks like it may have all of that too, but the sheer weirdness of seeing bad 3D animation keeps getting in the way. Bad 2D animation can be charming at best, or at least not get too much in the way of a movie's other good points at worst. Bad 3D animation can creep out a viewer in ways you would not believe.
(And even so, it's hard not to compare the bad 2D animation of
Hanuman and
Krishna: The Birth to the *fantastic* Ghibli-esque animation used in 1992's
The Legend of Prince Rama, which was not produced in India. Search for "Hanuman" on Youtube and you'll find clips from
The Legend of Prince Rama. Compare that to the animation in
Hanuman especially, and it's kind of sad.)
Virgin Comics, if you ever plan on making that Ramayana cartoon that you have those
teaser images for on your website, I shall eagerly await it. In the meantime, I suppose I will hunt down a copy of this
Krishna business anway, but after sitting through the preview videos I think that the Uncanny Valley will be getting too much in the way of my enjoyment of it.
ETA: NEW REVIEWS OF ALL OF THE ABOVE MOVIES
HERE.
