There
is no Twilight Zone in this world. How very sad. They eat vegetables and work
all day in Sun Village, because of the constant sunlight. In contrast, people scarf
meat and dance all endless-night in Moon Kingdom. A poor young Sun Villager
will bring the halves together, but it is not clear how or why in Dara Harper’s
animated fable, The Sky Princess (trailer here), which screens as
part of the 2018 New York African Diaspora International Film Festival’s school
program.
Dafina’s
family is poor, even by Sun Village standards. Yet, her parents take perverse
pride in the hard-working simplicity of their lives. She is definitely short of
princely suitors. She just has her goofball pal Mosi, who is determined to get
out of the friend zone. As a result, she cannot resist when the evil
Owl-creature Tamu offers her a bargain that does not sound so Faustian,
allowing her to experience life as the princess of Moon Kingdom for as long as
she wants. At first it is rather fun to live as royalty, but she eventually
starts to miss her family (even though the voice of her new mom, the Moon Queen
is supplied by Vivica A. Fox). Unfortunately, when she finally decides to opt
out, Tamu shows her his true colors.
Even
though the animation of Claye Edou’s Minga and the Broken Spoon is rather simple, it is still appealingly old fashioned
in a sentimental throw-back kind of way. In contrast, the CG-animation of Sky Princess just looks cheap and down-market,
like a YouTube gag video thrown together with public domain animation software.
Harper’s
narrative is a nice story that has some nice messages with respect to true love
and filial piety, but in some ways, it could be seen as a critique of Dafina’s
aspirations for upward social mobility, which is problematic (suggesting she should
have just accept her lot farming and eating veggies). The prologue and epilogue
also clearly state Dafina brought about a rapprochement between Sun Village and
Moon Kingdom, but we never see that happen at all. The songs are not especially
memorable either.
