Prince of Persia: part 5
TW: some implied male-on-female physical violence
In the last installment of this series, Dastan and Tamina had turned on one another repeatedly, culminating in Tamina being captured by vaguely bad people and Dastan being uncomfortably chummy with their leader as he watched her dragged away to an unknown fate while she demanded that he heed her warnings about the dagger.
That behavior certainly paints Dastan as an uncaring man, willing to exercise what privileges he possesses. Although not born to wealth and power, he still exercises a similar attitude of disdain, precisely what Tamina accused him of. Since the plot demands that these two characters co-operate and even fall in love, this abusive and horrifying situation has to be first obscured by tasteless comedy and then remedied by them suddenly becoming a team.
To begin by distracting the audience from the severity of Tamina’s situation, it’s suddenly revealed that while there are plenty of weapons and scary people in this rebel camp, they’re just tax-evading gamblers (primarily on ostrich races, which apparently is relatively rare outside of Africa, so in places like Persia). The camp keeps with the same beige-centered color scheme that permeates the rest of this film, but there are the occasional red cloaks and even a few scattered blue and green cloaks that come out of the woodwork when we need some bright and happy colors to signal a shift towards jokes (mostly about taxes).
Dastan spots Tamina working as a beverage-seller while wearing an incredibly skimpy uniform. She’s been effectively sold into sexualized slavery, if not sexual slavery.
After a few cracks from the races’ owner about Persian taxes and the “hilarious” fate of Tamina, he suddenly turns on Dastan. He’s recognized him as the wanted Prince, who has a hefty price on his head if they can deliver him to Alamut for trial.
While tied down, he’s picked over, and the dagger is discovered. Unaware of its importance, the decision is made to melt it down to pry out the jewels. Tamina notices that it is taken from Dastan, and kicks into cursed smart girl mode by setting him up to succeed, in spite of his complicity in selling her into some form of servitude. She lets loose all of the ostriches and pours out the reserve of weapons to be melted down, causing pandemonium.
Naturally, Dastan takes advantage of the chaos to escape, and instantly happens upon the thief holding the dagger.
And takes it upon himself to cartoonishly take the dagger.
As they meet up, Tamina falls into the background, even as she shouts the idea that they should run to the caves.
She’s set up the situation so he could escape and survive. She created the conditions where he could grab the dagger back. She’s coming up with the broader aspects of their now joint escape plans. Her entire purpose in this escape is, in plot terms, subsidiary to getting the dagger into his hands.
Once inside the caves, Tamina manages to roll under the obligatory closing gateway, leaving Dastan and the dagger on the other side. The cliché exchange, of course, comes next.
Dastan says, “Lift the lever” which would open the gate.
Tamina says, “Give me the dagger.”
Suddenly, Dastan plunges his sword through the rickety gate, and Tamina makes a face full of shock.
The camera finally pulls back, but makes it appear as though Dastan stabbed someone through Tamina.
Of course, he actually stabbed around her (somehow), and threateningly comments, “Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind [to kill you].” Grabbing the keys off of the falling body of the actually stabbed person, Dastan opens the gate and flees with Tamina.
These are our heroes. This is our romance. Their relationship is defined at this point by Dastan refusing to negotiate with Tamina, refusing to acknowledge her as any sort of expert or authority, and forcing his plans on both her and his environment, the consequences be damned. How sweet.
On horseback together, with no comment from Tamina about how she was auctioned off by him or horrifyingly told that he very nearly considered killing her, they locate the lengthy march of guests to the now deceased king’s funeral in Avrat.
Instead of sneaking past the gaping holes in the security in front of the gate to the city, they come up with the plan to surreptitiously enter disguised as servants. This mostly seems like an excuse to put Tamina in revealing pseudo-Indian garb, as they both pretend to be Mughal servants or slaves.
Naturally, Dastan insisted on this plan, revealing at the last second he was going to count on Tamina’s knowledge of some of the guests, again relegating her to a clear supportive role. Additionally, the Mughal guest is further evidence of this being an early modern historical period, and therefore a story about Safavid Persia, not Sassanid Persia.
The ostensible emperor is not a military ruler, as history tells us, but rather a decadent and rotund man (a “noble” as Tamina explains). Dastan fittingly complains about having to carry the heaviest dignitary, edging awkwardly close to fat-shaming for laughs.
As they enter the city, some palm fronds or small tree limbs are strewn in front of their path. While common as a respectful gesture to distinguished guests in the Levant, I could find no mention of this as a practice in Persia at any point in history. In addition, we hear women on the sides of the procession ululating (enthusiastic and rhythmic howling, as some describe it), a practice common in political or religious reverence among some Arab groups (primarily those in North Africa) and other Semitic North Africans, such as Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians, but also predominantly Hindu Dravidian groups in South India and Bengalis in East India. It’s slightly less common as a ritual in mourning among some Arab groups, which is perhaps more fitting in the context of a king’s funeral, but again, mismatching in terms of culture and location. Including the ululation and palm frond procession only make sense as part of establishing this mythic Persia as an orientalist watershed of Arab, North African, Central Asians, and South Asian cultures.
Speaking of cultural inaccuracies, the king has a funerary mask.
Funerary masks are something strongly associated with the Egyptians and the ancient Greeks, as something seen as evidence of their materialistic and pre-Christian or pre-Islamic faults (of course with the impressive Mamluk funerary monuments and burying of crusaders in key positions within cathedrals there's plenty of ways to cry hypocrisy on this argument). With its coiled hair, this mask most strongly resembles the Thracian funerary masks I could find, something anachronistic to this story by approximately two thousand years.
Admittedly, the baubled depiction of the beard is highly consistent with Sassanid depictions of royalty, as shown on their coinage. Even in the context of Persia, however, this picture doesn't ring true. Various other clues (as said before) place this story in the Safavid period, nearly a thousand years after the Sassanid rule of Persia and following the transformation of Persia into an Islamic nation. Conversions to Islam in Persia had to work against indigenous customs of what is today perceived as bodily destruction on death, with funeral pyres, ossuary boxes, or the towers of silence still used by Zoroastrians who migrated to India. In light of this, a funerary mask appears to fail being hand-waved as unusually pre-Islamic as those alternative traditions did not exist in Persia.
In any case, Dastan sneaks onto the funerary litter, and then sneaks a note into his uncle’s pocket. Having left Tamina in a safer location, he meets with his uncle, and begins his explanation.
“I didn’t kill Father…”
----------
This is the third of as many as fourteen posts on Disney's The Prince of Persia. (Here's the first, second, third and fourth.) I do not own this title. I have some knowledge about Islamic and Indian art and architecture, but it's fairly amateurish, so I welcome corrections, especially from any one from Iran (or elsewhere in the Middle East, Central Asia, and even India really).
In the last installment of this series, Dastan and Tamina had turned on one another repeatedly, culminating in Tamina being captured by vaguely bad people and Dastan being uncomfortably chummy with their leader as he watched her dragged away to an unknown fate while she demanded that he heed her warnings about the dagger.
That behavior certainly paints Dastan as an uncaring man, willing to exercise what privileges he possesses. Although not born to wealth and power, he still exercises a similar attitude of disdain, precisely what Tamina accused him of. Since the plot demands that these two characters co-operate and even fall in love, this abusive and horrifying situation has to be first obscured by tasteless comedy and then remedied by them suddenly becoming a team.
To begin by distracting the audience from the severity of Tamina’s situation, it’s suddenly revealed that while there are plenty of weapons and scary people in this rebel camp, they’re just tax-evading gamblers (primarily on ostrich races, which apparently is relatively rare outside of Africa, so in places like Persia). The camp keeps with the same beige-centered color scheme that permeates the rest of this film, but there are the occasional red cloaks and even a few scattered blue and green cloaks that come out of the woodwork when we need some bright and happy colors to signal a shift towards jokes (mostly about taxes).
Dastan spots Tamina working as a beverage-seller while wearing an incredibly skimpy uniform. She’s been effectively sold into sexualized slavery, if not sexual slavery.
After a few cracks from the races’ owner about Persian taxes and the “hilarious” fate of Tamina, he suddenly turns on Dastan. He’s recognized him as the wanted Prince, who has a hefty price on his head if they can deliver him to Alamut for trial.
While tied down, he’s picked over, and the dagger is discovered. Unaware of its importance, the decision is made to melt it down to pry out the jewels. Tamina notices that it is taken from Dastan, and kicks into cursed smart girl mode by setting him up to succeed, in spite of his complicity in selling her into some form of servitude. She lets loose all of the ostriches and pours out the reserve of weapons to be melted down, causing pandemonium.
Naturally, Dastan takes advantage of the chaos to escape, and instantly happens upon the thief holding the dagger.
And takes it upon himself to cartoonishly take the dagger.
As they meet up, Tamina falls into the background, even as she shouts the idea that they should run to the caves.
She’s set up the situation so he could escape and survive. She created the conditions where he could grab the dagger back. She’s coming up with the broader aspects of their now joint escape plans. Her entire purpose in this escape is, in plot terms, subsidiary to getting the dagger into his hands.
Once inside the caves, Tamina manages to roll under the obligatory closing gateway, leaving Dastan and the dagger on the other side. The cliché exchange, of course, comes next.
Dastan says, “Lift the lever” which would open the gate.
Tamina says, “Give me the dagger.”
Suddenly, Dastan plunges his sword through the rickety gate, and Tamina makes a face full of shock.
The camera finally pulls back, but makes it appear as though Dastan stabbed someone through Tamina.
Of course, he actually stabbed around her (somehow), and threateningly comments, “Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind [to kill you].” Grabbing the keys off of the falling body of the actually stabbed person, Dastan opens the gate and flees with Tamina.
These are our heroes. This is our romance. Their relationship is defined at this point by Dastan refusing to negotiate with Tamina, refusing to acknowledge her as any sort of expert or authority, and forcing his plans on both her and his environment, the consequences be damned. How sweet.
On horseback together, with no comment from Tamina about how she was auctioned off by him or horrifyingly told that he very nearly considered killing her, they locate the lengthy march of guests to the now deceased king’s funeral in Avrat.
Instead of sneaking past the gaping holes in the security in front of the gate to the city, they come up with the plan to surreptitiously enter disguised as servants. This mostly seems like an excuse to put Tamina in revealing pseudo-Indian garb, as they both pretend to be Mughal servants or slaves.
Naturally, Dastan insisted on this plan, revealing at the last second he was going to count on Tamina’s knowledge of some of the guests, again relegating her to a clear supportive role. Additionally, the Mughal guest is further evidence of this being an early modern historical period, and therefore a story about Safavid Persia, not Sassanid Persia.
The ostensible emperor is not a military ruler, as history tells us, but rather a decadent and rotund man (a “noble” as Tamina explains). Dastan fittingly complains about having to carry the heaviest dignitary, edging awkwardly close to fat-shaming for laughs.
As they enter the city, some palm fronds or small tree limbs are strewn in front of their path. While common as a respectful gesture to distinguished guests in the Levant, I could find no mention of this as a practice in Persia at any point in history. In addition, we hear women on the sides of the procession ululating (enthusiastic and rhythmic howling, as some describe it), a practice common in political or religious reverence among some Arab groups (primarily those in North Africa) and other Semitic North Africans, such as Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians, but also predominantly Hindu Dravidian groups in South India and Bengalis in East India. It’s slightly less common as a ritual in mourning among some Arab groups, which is perhaps more fitting in the context of a king’s funeral, but again, mismatching in terms of culture and location. Including the ululation and palm frond procession only make sense as part of establishing this mythic Persia as an orientalist watershed of Arab, North African, Central Asians, and South Asian cultures.
Speaking of cultural inaccuracies, the king has a funerary mask.
Funerary masks are something strongly associated with the Egyptians and the ancient Greeks, as something seen as evidence of their materialistic and pre-Christian or pre-Islamic faults (of course with the impressive Mamluk funerary monuments and burying of crusaders in key positions within cathedrals there's plenty of ways to cry hypocrisy on this argument). With its coiled hair, this mask most strongly resembles the Thracian funerary masks I could find, something anachronistic to this story by approximately two thousand years.
Admittedly, the baubled depiction of the beard is highly consistent with Sassanid depictions of royalty, as shown on their coinage. Even in the context of Persia, however, this picture doesn't ring true. Various other clues (as said before) place this story in the Safavid period, nearly a thousand years after the Sassanid rule of Persia and following the transformation of Persia into an Islamic nation. Conversions to Islam in Persia had to work against indigenous customs of what is today perceived as bodily destruction on death, with funeral pyres, ossuary boxes, or the towers of silence still used by Zoroastrians who migrated to India. In light of this, a funerary mask appears to fail being hand-waved as unusually pre-Islamic as those alternative traditions did not exist in Persia.
In any case, Dastan sneaks onto the funerary litter, and then sneaks a note into his uncle’s pocket. Having left Tamina in a safer location, he meets with his uncle, and begins his explanation.
“I didn’t kill Father…”
----------
This is the third of as many as fourteen posts on Disney's The Prince of Persia. (Here's the first, second, third and fourth.) I do not own this title. I have some knowledge about Islamic and Indian art and architecture, but it's fairly amateurish, so I welcome corrections, especially from any one from Iran (or elsewhere in the Middle East, Central Asia, and even India really).