QUINTESSENTIALLY CANADIAN
Window Horses combines cultures, poetry in this effective animated film
Ann Marie Fleming’s first feature-length animation in 12 years, Window Horses tells the story of a young woman of Persian-Chinese descent living in North Vancouver, who gets invited to a poetry contest in Shiraz, Iran. In other words, it’s a quintessentially Canadian tale.
As the film opens, Rosie Ming (voiced in the unmistakable tones of Sandra Oh) has just self-published a book subtitled Poems By a Person Who Has Never Been to France. In fact, she’s never been much of anywhere, so when an invitation to a poetry slam halfway across the world arrives in her mailbox, it doesn’t take much prodding from her best friend (Ellen Page) for her to accept.
Arriving in Iran, Rosie goes overboard trying to fit in, opting for the full chador rather than the more modern hijab or head scarf. Her out-of-place-ness is also signified by the fact that Fleming chooses to draw her in her signature “stick-girl” style, while the rest of the characters get fully formed bodies.
Rosie is also a bit in awe of the other poet/performers, who include a Chinese dissident and an annoying German poseur, the latter given hilarious voice by Don McKellar. Their work — and all the poems within the film — are presented in various animation styles, and sometimes in the original language without subtitles; we’re meant to understand them on an emotional level rather than a linguistic one.
This recalls a great line in Jim Jarmusch’s recent movie Paterson: “Poetry in translation is like taking a shower with a raincoat
on.” I was also reminded of the film when Taylor Mali recites his poem The Moon Exactly How It Is Tonight. Because while the verse in Window Horses varies wildly in quality, here was one I wanted to print out immediately and hang on my wall.
The plot is similarly uneven. While it’s true that the event is as much a cultural exchange as a poetry reading, it does sometimes feel that we’re being spoon-fed Persian literary history. “How is it everyone here knows everything about everything?” Rosie wonders aloud at one point, echoing what many an audience member may be feeling.
This gets even more pronounced when she mentions that her father was an Iranian man who abandoned his family when she was a child. Suddenly, it seems as though everyone she contacts knew something of his tortured life lived through the Revolution of ’79 and the subsequent eight years of war with Iraq. Rest assured, Rosie will learn much about her family history in the film’s 85 minutes.
That’s not really a criticism. Window Horses may be a fairly linear story, but there’s no rule that says poetry or drama has to tie itself up in knots. And it’s lovely to watch how Fleming finds a way to express verse in animation. It’s not surprising that the film won the best B.C. and Canadian feature prizes when it played at the Vancouver festival; nor that The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming, to breathe out its full title, was named one of the top 10 Canadian films of 2016 by the Toronto festival group.