A pelican mother sacrifices her own blood for her ‘children’. The ‘mylos’ animal eats a crocodile from inside. A mystic bird plays the role of an oracle of life and death for the sick and ill.
‘The Three Tales from Alexandria’, an animation by Natasza Cetner uses three fairy tales of an anonymous writer from Alexandria to take the viewer far back in the past when humans used to perceive nature full of magic and mystical creatures.
Each of the three stories focuses on a theme harnessing a certain meaning: the story about the pelican is a story about love and the self sacrifice that it entails but also about the remorse following intemperate actions and the voice of conscience that rebukes the spirit and generates responsibility. The second story about the creature ‘mylos’ looking like a small dog hunting the crocodile from inside, can be interpreted as a allegory of fragility and transience even of those looking invulnerable on the outside. It refers to humbleness and modesty. The third story tells the story of the bird that turns its face away from the dying but takes the illness of the sick on to itself and burns it in the sun. A story referring to gratefulness and maybe the misunderstood or hard to understand acts of justice, or perhaps to the force of Death as a divine act and the impossibility to intervene on it.
The three stories are masterfully told visually in a simple yet beautiful drawing technique, with few words and deep contemplative mood. Each collects its own teachings and is left meditating on the great mysteries of the world which hide the deepest learnings of wisdom.
This one is not to be missed!
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