Old World Lullabies

A bizarre and somewhat otherworldly children's music video, Old World Lullabies purportedly offers both an engaging story of a "little dreamer" on a magical bedtime voyage" and a collection of popular lullabies from the "old world." Narratively speaking the "story" makes no sense, and anyone who has had a steady diet of MTV's non-sequential images will feel right at home here. On the plus side, the visual imagery is truly lovely (the filmmakers were able to use a set provided by Steven Spielberg) with a lot of soft focus cinematography and vibrant color. Too, the songs sung by Grace Alexander are pleasing to the ear. But the production is more bells and whistles than anything else and the glitz covers up some major organizational faux pas's. The accompanying song booklet features eight songs, including an "Old World Medley" (which is not included on the video), and missing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" (which is included on the video). As we alluded to earlier, the visuals have no connection whatsoever to the songs, and are occasionally even puzzling or naive (in the fairy dance, for example, you'll discover that fairies come in a wide variety of flavors: all of them being young white girls with long blonde hair). Opening with "Loch Lomond" (also not mentioned in the booklet), the tape includes: "Hush Little Baby," "Brahms' Lullaby," "Greensleeves," "Danny Boy," "Rock A Bye Baby," and others. Old World Lullabies is a pretty video which only lacks intelligibility and organization. Top-notch production values and wonderful subject matter can't quite overcome the sense of incoherence which pervades the program. Not recommended. (Available from most distributors.)