The Stonecutter
2005/07
distributed by Maverick
unrated, recommended 12+
80 minutes (story itself runs 70)
Hi Susie!
I impulsively checked out a live action DVD out this other library I was visiting.
First, about the storytelling mechanic.
Someone is reading to you a classic fairy tale.
He has a soft sing-song voice with a bit of an accent.
You do not hear people speak, it is just the narrator.
A clever mechanic that allows the production to ignore the constant sounds of modern civilization while filming.
Filmed entirely in Tahiti, “The Stonecutter” looks beautiful.
Set in a land where the moon is upside down and the sun controls the tides unlike everywhere else “The Stonecutter” is about a poor man who breaks rocks at the mountain and sells the jewels he finds in order to take care of his family.
The man goes through cycles of being happy for a while and then becoming unhappy. He becomes selfish, thinking if he was the most powerful thing in the world, then he would then be happy.
For example, on the way from his house to the mountain the man sees a young girl in the distance. He waves to her and she waves back. Every day she appears closer and closer. Finally, they are close enough to speak. She gives him seven magical sounds. When the man uses them in the right order he will be happy for the rest of his life.
The man is happy, as he walks up the mountain he signs the magical sounds and when he is done with the last one he digs and finds more jewels than ever before.
Then one day he forgets one of the sounds. Then another and another. He is sad, not only is he no longer finding jewels, but he has lost something that made him happy.
He sees the girl again and tells her he is forgetting the sounds and is unhappy. It is better not to have something that makes you happy in the first place if you are just going to lose it.
She tells him she was only suppose to tell him three magical sounds and the ones he lost he did not really need. Now she will tell him the correct order to use the magical sounds and he will be happy for the rest of his life.
The man is happy. Then one day he forgets the correct order of the magical sounds. He is sad. As the sun beats down on him with its heat he thinks “If I were the sun then I would be shining down on everything. I would be the most powerful.”
And then he was the sun.
He had to work hard. Get up early in the morning. Color the ocean, color the trees, color the flowers. Coloring the flowers to a lot of work because he had to do it all day. He did not think about his family at all.
The man’s family and friends went looking for the man, but did not find him anywhere. Day after day they did not see him. They were very sad.
The stonecutter’s journey has just begun.
The movie had been moving at a sedate pace, now it moves faster.
It offers an opportunity to talk about being happy with what you have vs trying to move up in the world – to better oneself.
For parents: The man goes shirtless throughout the whole movie.
The man orders a tattoo for himself at one point in the movie.
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