Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

You’ve heard of Peter Pan, right? He’s most famous for not growing up and for believing in fairies. And it’s true, kids are more likely to believe in magic than grown ups. This week, I’m looking at three new movies about the innocence and magic of childhood. There’s a disabled, teenaged butterfly that wants to migrate with his flock; an indigenous boy with magical powers sent to a church-run school; and a group of kids forced to face a fairytale apocalypse.

The New Boy

Wri/Dir: Warwick Thornton (Sweet Country)

It’s the 1940s at a remote Australian Benedictine monastery. Sister Eileen (Kate Blanchett) is excited because there’s a new student arriving soon. She runs the place, ever since the head Benedictine monk died — she keeps this detail a secret from the outside world. The new boy (Aswan Reid) is indigenous, can’t speak English, and has had virtually no contact with white Australia. He has blond hair and brown skin. He sleeps on the floor, not on a bed, and finds forks and spoons a mystery. At the same time, he can conjure up glowing particles to light his way, using just his hands. And he has magical powers: he can speak to trees, and cures people bitten by poisonous snakes.

The sisters teach him out to use an outhouse (which he finds both funny and revolting), and about western ways and foods. Above all, Sister Eileen wants to convert him to Christianity — she lives him deeply, and wants to save his soul. She uses a life-sized wooden statue of Jesus writhing on the cross as the catalyst. She hopes to change him completely, and ultimately to baptize him and give him a Christian name. Will he convert? And what will happen if he does?

The New Boy is a gentle, bittersweet look at religion, colonization, forced assimilation and residential schools (known as boarding schools in Australia), as seen through one boy’s eyes. I found it both inspiring and tragic. Kate Blanchett is wonderful as the scheming but good-hearted nun, while young actor Aswan Reid is remarkable as the unnamed new boy. (The movie opens with a violent fight between him and a soldier in the bush, just one of many surprising scenes he manages to convey without uttering a single word.) Director Warwick Thornton based it partly on his own experiences as a boy in Alice Springs, and those personal details and feelings come through. 

I liked The New Boy a lot.

Butterfly Tale

Dir: Sophie Roy

Patrick (Mena Massoud) is a young monarch butterfly who recently made the transition from caterpillar. He and his best friend Marty are looking forward to joining his village on their annual migration to Mexico. He is especially excited about spending quality time with the girl he’s crushing on, Jennifer (Tatiana Maslany). But there’s a problem. Patrick emerged from his cocoon with mismatched wings, so he’s disabled and can’t fly. And Marty is still a caterpillar. They are teased and bullied by the bigger butterflies as “butter fails”.

Worse still, Patrick’s mom, a leading flier in the “flutter” (what they call their butterfly community) wants him to stay home in the winter. But Patrick and Marty are determined to get there by hook or by crook. Jennifer, a strong flier, is pulling a leaf filled with milkweed so they can all eat on the way. Patric and Marty stowaway aboard that leaf! Little did they know they’ll face tornadoes, big box stores and angry birds posing life threatening dangers on the way. Will Patrick ever learn to fly? Will Marty ever make the transition from caterpillar to butterfly? And will Jennifer get over her hangups? 

Butterfly Tale is an animated, coming-of-age road movie about anthropomorphic  butterflies. They’re basically people, with human hair, faces, and bodies but with big butterfly wings coming out of their backs. They wear T-shirts and hoodies, and worry about adolescent insecurities. (They even have to stop the flight along the way to take a leak.) Little kids might really identify with the characters and like this movie; it has good role models for children with disabilities, and deals with environmental issues. The thing is, it’s not original or funny or risky or challenging anywhere, just a typical adolescent drama, where the people happen to be butterflies. I’m not saying it was uninteresting — it kept my attention the whole time — there just wasn’t much to it.

Once Within a Time

Wri/Dir: Godfrey Reggio

Once upon a time, a bunch of happy kids follow the beckoning voice of a goddess onto a stage. After riding a merry-go-round they start to notice strange happenings. An Adam-and-Eve-like young couple in wire masks take a piece of fruit from a sinister looking apple-man, unleashing terrible events. Smart phones generate robots, a chimp in a monkey suit and another in a VR helmet, huge industrial power-towers, a baobab tree exploding into a mushroom cloud.  Ecological and geopolitical devastation is at hand! Can we survive the end of this world… or maybe start a new one?

Once Within a Time is a phantasmagorical, magic-lantern fable performed on a two dimensional stage beneath a prominent proscenium arch. It’s equal parts live-action, documentary footage, still images, and 3-D stop-motion animation. 

I first saw Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanasqatsi as a teenager and the barrage of apocalyptic images of corporate uniformity combined with Philip Glass’s pounding music left deep marks in my psyche. This one is kinder and gentler but still effective. It’s co-directed and edited by Jon Kane with amazing vintage special affects from irises to rear projections to dual spectroscope photos. There are tinted black & white shots, shadow puppets, grotesque masks, and dancing robots that evoke everything from Georges Méliès to Guy Maddin to the late Peewee Herman’s Playhouse.  Who knew the apocalypse could be so beautiful? It’s less than an hour in length, but provides about three times that in intensity. If you can, see it on a big screen and just let the images and music overwhelm you.

Great movie. 

Butterfly Tale is now playing in Toronto; check your local listings. The New Boy is a feature at the ImagineNative film festival starting next week. And Once Within a Time is playing tomorrow (Sunday, October 15th, at 5 pm) at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.