A Russian animation film based on a tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It tells the story of child Gerda in her quest to rescue her beloved brother Kay, kidnapped by the beautiful but icy Snow Queen. It is, above all, a story of fraternal love, and how love conquers everything if you fight against the adversity. Love
melts the coldest heart... has a meaning in this story.
The animation is very good according to the standards of the 1950s, with beautiful backgrounds, and great human movement. The drawing of the Snow Queen is gorgeous and her drawing reminded me of the Socialist Realism paintings and sculptures with angled facial features and muscular strong bodies. Also excellent and very Japanese-style (Edo Period) is the drawing and movement of the sea waves. The image of the painting "The Great Wave of Kanagawa" by Katsushika Hokusai (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa) came immediately to my head. The film shares some visuals with Disney, and the little character that introduces the story reminded me of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio; he even has the little umbrella with him! However, to be true, Disney was doing more advanced things (both visually and re the complexity of the scripts) at the time. The classic music by Artemiy Ayvazyan is truly beautiful, and typical of long-footage animation movies at the time. The Russian dubbing is also very charming.
What fails, to me, is the way the story is told (the script) and the plainness of the characters, which can be explained by the fact that the movie is targeted to a public of small children. The only characters I found interesting and believable were the ones of the little child thief and the the witchy Snow Queen. The same can be said of the action of the movie, which is not that thrilling for adults.
The film got different awards for animation in international film festivals, Cannes and Venice included, at the time. It is also attributed to Miyazaki saying that he loved this movie and that convinced him to continue with animation in a moment when he had doubts whether to make of animation his career.
July 25, 2010
