marty missed our last movie night. she doesn't like to do this but i sent her away. since returning to work marty's friend time went from semi-regular chats at parks and kids events to comments made in passing while porting the children to and fro. of course with her being marty, she pushed back from being sent away, saying, spending what little free time she has with her family is the right thing to do. i confessed this usually holds true except when you are exhausted and mentally drained. i know my wife well enough to know that the antidote to empty buckets for her is time with her friends. so for her own good we, her family, shunned her for the evening.

before walking out the door i asked her if we had a movie for movie night. she pointed at a netflix envelope in the foyer. i said cool and she was off for a night of debauchery (e.g. this looks like two women sharing a small table at a modest eatery and talking, non-stop, for five to six hours). the kids and i ate our saturday night, cheap chinese staple and then headed up for our movie. for a house that has no tv and bans recreational computer-use during the week, weekend movie night is a pretty exciting time to a twelve, ten and seven year old. to the shouted 'movie-time' announcement the kids all raced upstairs to ready their usual spots in front of the screen, a twenty inch imac. i sat on a futon on the other side of the room. alex usually readies the movie, inserting the disc, staring the player, and doing the sound check on the external speakers. once everyone is situated the calls of 'start it, start it' get made and everyone zeros in on the small screen.

the opening scene of this animated film showed a peaceful african village on a plain. the view slowly moved in above the village, showing a few ladies doing chores. the zoom continued in closer, now focusing on one of the several huts until the shot showed the interior. inside the hut you see the full-body profile of a topless, pregnant african woman leaning back. she was very pregnant and very topless (very topless being a polite way of saying she was a pertly endowed young woman). while taking this unexpected visual scene in, the dialog began:

UNSEEN CHILD VOICE
mother, bring me into the world.

MOTHER (talking to her stomach)
a child that can speak from the inside of his mother, can bring himself into the world.

at this point, seconds later, the shot backed off to show the profile of the her legs. her dress mercifully covered her bottom but from between her legs crawls this tiny baby. after clearing her feet he sits up, looks down at the umbilical cord, pinches it off from his navel, tossing it aside and announces.

CHILD VOICE
my name is kirakou. mother wash me.

MOTHER
a child who can bring himself into the world can wash himself.

and as you might guess this is exactly what he did using a water-filled bucket in the hut. the surprising film continued along in this manner offering more surprising antics from this just-born kirakou and providing droves and oodles of topless women.

the second most surprising part of this movie for me was not the very unique content but my children's reaction to it. a full twenty minutes passed before bella turned to me and made the 'everyone's naked' face (don't ask me how i knew what an 'everyone's naked' face looked like as i'd never been trained in such things, but i knew it when i saw it). i returned the 'so what? it's ok' face. bella's return countenance said she didn't know if it was ok and that mother might be hearing about it when she gets home (i definitely know that face). after about ten more minutes of a fully naked cast bella became vocal.

BELLA
dad. like no one is dressed in this movie.

TROY
so.

BELLA
what do you mean so. should the boys be watching this?

TROY
do you think everyone in the world dresses like you?

a still mildly uncertain but thinking bella swung back to the movie. throughout, all of the women, save one elderly lady, had youthful, upright, full breasts. the token older woman's chest looked exaggeratedly saggy in comparison. after about an hour of this national geographic on digital steroids media, anthony, age seven, pointed this anomaly out asking why that one woman's breasts looked like socks. bella matter of factly explained it was because she was old and that's what happens to old boobs. anthony acknowledged this with a simple 'oh' but for the remainder of the film would call out 'there's the old lady' every time he saw her on-screen.

the first most surprising part of this film is how riveted my kids were at this unusual tale full of legend and mysticism. given all the nudity i was studying them closely, waiting for a reaction, but as i said, it really didn't come. this might speak to how much of a naked house we are so that nudity isn't really a thing to them. what i did see were three children with rapt focus on wonderfully simple and beautifully portrayed story. unfortunately, if you choose to take in kirikou and the sorceress after reading this, it will lack some of the surprise it held for us, but i'd still say it is worth seeing.

when marty returned she asked how the movie was. with a hint of mystery in my voice, i told her she should give it a watch. the next morning, i saw her and boys on the couch, the boys being more than ready to re-watch with her. for a while yet this is more of a extra-computer thing than it is a naked-boobies thing, something i will relish for all the innocent days i have left.