Icare

Despite its title which focuses on Icar, the main plot of this beautiful animation is provided by an interesting reversal of the myth of Minotaur: here Minotaur (under its own name, Asterion) is a good guy and both Theseus and Ariadne are bad guys.

Through its visual aesthetics and music, the movie tries to teleport us to ancient (Minoan) Crete. Icar, however, does not move the plot in any way here; his role is to live this world and convey his experiences: of the good Asterion the telepath, of the wile Theseus, of the self-obsessed Ariadne. If you ever wondered why Theseus left Ariadne on his way back to Athens (she was later snatched by Dionisios, another horned god, but it is not shown here), this movie has a pretty convincing answer!

One thing which is not developed enough, is the relationship of Cretans with their gods: the movie explicitly starts with invoking "constant fear of gods experienced by ancient Greeks", but this theme in the plot is really unclear: was Pasiphae seduced by Poseidon through fear? Why did Minos finally decide to kill Minotaur, in spite of the creature being the son of Poseidon? Why there are horns everywhere in Crete and yet horned Minotaur is to be killed? Such questions certainly are asked by this rare movie, yet answers are not provided. Maybe the opening invocation to "the fear of gods" should also be left out in order to avoid making this animation too confusing: is this more a fable, or more a serious telling of myth and history?