Spoiler warning - there will be some spoilers in here, so read at your own risk if you've not seen the film yet...
Frozen is the latest Disney film, (loosely) based on Hans Christian Anderson's the Snow Queen, about two princesses, Elsa and Anna. Elsa has the power to create snow and ice, but when she inadvertently throws the kingdom of Arendelle into a permanent winter and flees to the mountains, Anna has to journey out to find her and bring her home. It took me a while to get round to seeing this, as Christmas meant I was pretty busy when it first came out. Apparently the same thing happened to everyone else too - Frozen actually had the 3rd most successful 5th box-office weekend of all time. That may sound like a tenuous achievement, but what it means is that only Titanic and Avatar have ever done better, which is incredibly impressive and testament to how awesome this film really is.
I was completely into it from the beginning. Traditionally, the first song in Disney movies is used to establish the tone and world of the film (for example Circle of Life in Lion King and Arabian Nights in Aladdin), and this has a brilliant one. Choral chanting gives way to a steady rhythm as ice cutters saw and hammer through a frozen lake, singing a quickly building shanty about the powerful nature of ice, featuring such evocative lyrics as "Cut through the heart, cold and clear/ Strike for love and strike for fear/ There's beauty and there's danger here/ Split the ice apart - beware the frozen heart," which sets up the tone perfectly. Winter isn't all about ice crystals, snowmen and sledding - it's also a treacherous world of piercing cold and sinister, frosty darkness. The contrast of ice as something beautiful to be admired and something deadly to be feared is one of the film's strongest themes, and we are often reminded that Elsa's power could develop either way. The fact that she was originally going to be the villain of the movie shows how tied in her character is with that dichotomy.
The first clue to that connection comes quickly after Frozen Heart, when we see Elsa accidentally fire her magic at Anna's face as they play in the snow she created. The King and Queen take her to a community of trolls (refreshingly portrayed as the mystical creatures of Scandinavian folklore rather than the big dumb brutes of films like Lord of the Rings and Troll Hunter), who are able to save her by removing all memory of Elsa's power. However, the trolls predict that one day Elsa will be feared for her abilities and the family resolve to keep her locked away from everyone, including Anna, for Elsa's own protection. At this point the film's emotional heft starts to come into play, as a confused and frustrated Anna sings the incredibly sweet song Do You Want To Build A Snowman? to try and persuade her sister to come out and play like they used to.
Unlike other Disney fairytales like the Little Mermaid and Tangled where the isolation of the princess is imposed by concerned or antagonistic parental figures, in this film Elsa shuts herself away, choosing not to leave her room even for her own parents' funeral. The King and Queen's death is shown in the middle of the song, in a stunning shot where the ship they are on is slowly and silently swallowed by the sea in the distance during a storm. Many Disney heroes and heroines are orphans and we often see their parents' death, but it is usually heroic and/or given the attention such tragedy deserves, like with Bambi's mum or Mufasa. Somehow the anonymity of this death makes it all the more upsetting, reflecting the distance Elsa is putting between herself and the people that matter to her the most, and the final verse of Anna's song is beautifully judged to take full advantage of that poignancy.
So far I've probably made the film sound incredibly depressing, but that's not the case at all. The best comedy features a little bit of tragedy, and one of the reasons this film is so awesome is how effectively they manage to pull at the heartstrings at the key moments, even making some small kids start crying in the cinema when I saw it. Between the tragic start and the child-upsetting bit at the end, the rest of the film is incredibly funny. Most of the comedy comes from Olaf the animated snowman, whose song about how much he would love to experience Summer for the first time is absolutely genius ("Winter's a good time to stay in and cuddle/ But put me in Summer and I'll be a... happy snowman!"), but there are plenty of other sources. My personal favourite is the Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna scene, which is only a short section of the movie but features a fantastically likeable and entertaining shopkeeper. If ever a minor side character deserved a spin-off, it would be Wandering Oaken. The trolls are very entertaining as well, with a great song trying to set Anna up with her mountain guide Kristoff by listing the reasons why he's 'a bit of a fixer-upper' (including 'his thing with the reindeer that's a little outside of nature's laws...').
The main songs in the film are the bigger set pieces, such as For the First Time in Forever and the particularly powerful Let It Go, which I predict will have a very good shot at the best song Oscar (it's already had a Golden Globe nomination). All the music in the film has a much more Broadway feel to it than other Disney fare, which is largely down to the songs being written by (the appropriately named) Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Tony winning songwriter Robert Lopez, who wrote the music for Avenue Q and the Book of Mormon. Let It Go is belted out magnificently by Idina Menzel, who voices Elsa and also has a theatrical background and a Tony under her belt for her performance in Wicked. The impressive vocals lend themselves perfectly to the dramatic mountain landscapes in the background of a stunning sequence where Elsa finds herself free to explore the limits of her powers.
The visuals in this sequence make it one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever seen in an animated film. Elsa waves her hand and stamps her feet, and builds an incredible ice castle, where the floors and pillars branch out like snowflakes crystallising and chandeliers form on the ceiling like icicles. It's a celebration of creativity and a dazzling display of what animators are capable of - you get the impression that they took the same opportunity Elsa did to let their imagination loose. The rest of the film is just as beautiful. The textures of the ice and snow are immaculately realised, and the blizzard raised in the finale feels like it stretches off for eternity, with stranded ships looming out of the gloom. Even things that are taken for granted in animation nowadays, like skin tones, are perfect - the characters look cold throughout without resorting to blue tones, chattering teeth, etc.
The most awesome thing about this film though, representing a landmark step in Disney's catalogue and one that I hope we see more of in future movies, is its treatment of the two heroines. At the start of the film Anna looks like she is in danger of becoming another identikit Disney princess, singing about her dreams of falling in love before deciding to marry a handsome prince just one short musical number after meeting him for the first time. She then gets mocked for this decision for the entire film, by her sister and Kristoff especially, and by the end is very much aware of how ridiculous an idea this was. Compared with the romantic plots of the older classics like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, where the princesses seem to have been waiting their entire lives to fall instantly in love with the first random stranger in a crown who comes their way, this is groundbreaking material. Both sisters have well-rounded and thought out personalities - one extroverted, one introverted - and their interaction is a completely believable and realistic relationship between two sisters. They are each independent and neither fully understands the needs and emotions that motivate the other, but they are still the most important people in each others' lives. Their relationship, not that of any romantic entanglement, is what drives the plot and carries the emotion of the entire film, and as they are the first Disney princesses to have ever done that, that is pretty awesome.
Frozen is the latest Disney film, (loosely) based on Hans Christian Anderson's the Snow Queen, about two princesses, Elsa and Anna. Elsa has the power to create snow and ice, but when she inadvertently throws the kingdom of Arendelle into a permanent winter and flees to the mountains, Anna has to journey out to find her and bring her home. It took me a while to get round to seeing this, as Christmas meant I was pretty busy when it first came out. Apparently the same thing happened to everyone else too - Frozen actually had the 3rd most successful 5th box-office weekend of all time. That may sound like a tenuous achievement, but what it means is that only Titanic and Avatar have ever done better, which is incredibly impressive and testament to how awesome this film really is.
I was completely into it from the beginning. Traditionally, the first song in Disney movies is used to establish the tone and world of the film (for example Circle of Life in Lion King and Arabian Nights in Aladdin), and this has a brilliant one. Choral chanting gives way to a steady rhythm as ice cutters saw and hammer through a frozen lake, singing a quickly building shanty about the powerful nature of ice, featuring such evocative lyrics as "Cut through the heart, cold and clear/ Strike for love and strike for fear/ There's beauty and there's danger here/ Split the ice apart - beware the frozen heart," which sets up the tone perfectly. Winter isn't all about ice crystals, snowmen and sledding - it's also a treacherous world of piercing cold and sinister, frosty darkness. The contrast of ice as something beautiful to be admired and something deadly to be feared is one of the film's strongest themes, and we are often reminded that Elsa's power could develop either way. The fact that she was originally going to be the villain of the movie shows how tied in her character is with that dichotomy.
The first clue to that connection comes quickly after Frozen Heart, when we see Elsa accidentally fire her magic at Anna's face as they play in the snow she created. The King and Queen take her to a community of trolls (refreshingly portrayed as the mystical creatures of Scandinavian folklore rather than the big dumb brutes of films like Lord of the Rings and Troll Hunter), who are able to save her by removing all memory of Elsa's power. However, the trolls predict that one day Elsa will be feared for her abilities and the family resolve to keep her locked away from everyone, including Anna, for Elsa's own protection. At this point the film's emotional heft starts to come into play, as a confused and frustrated Anna sings the incredibly sweet song Do You Want To Build A Snowman? to try and persuade her sister to come out and play like they used to.
Unlike other Disney fairytales like the Little Mermaid and Tangled where the isolation of the princess is imposed by concerned or antagonistic parental figures, in this film Elsa shuts herself away, choosing not to leave her room even for her own parents' funeral. The King and Queen's death is shown in the middle of the song, in a stunning shot where the ship they are on is slowly and silently swallowed by the sea in the distance during a storm. Many Disney heroes and heroines are orphans and we often see their parents' death, but it is usually heroic and/or given the attention such tragedy deserves, like with Bambi's mum or Mufasa. Somehow the anonymity of this death makes it all the more upsetting, reflecting the distance Elsa is putting between herself and the people that matter to her the most, and the final verse of Anna's song is beautifully judged to take full advantage of that poignancy.
So far I've probably made the film sound incredibly depressing, but that's not the case at all. The best comedy features a little bit of tragedy, and one of the reasons this film is so awesome is how effectively they manage to pull at the heartstrings at the key moments, even making some small kids start crying in the cinema when I saw it. Between the tragic start and the child-upsetting bit at the end, the rest of the film is incredibly funny. Most of the comedy comes from Olaf the animated snowman, whose song about how much he would love to experience Summer for the first time is absolutely genius ("Winter's a good time to stay in and cuddle/ But put me in Summer and I'll be a... happy snowman!"), but there are plenty of other sources. My personal favourite is the Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna scene, which is only a short section of the movie but features a fantastically likeable and entertaining shopkeeper. If ever a minor side character deserved a spin-off, it would be Wandering Oaken. The trolls are very entertaining as well, with a great song trying to set Anna up with her mountain guide Kristoff by listing the reasons why he's 'a bit of a fixer-upper' (including 'his thing with the reindeer that's a little outside of nature's laws...').
The main songs in the film are the bigger set pieces, such as For the First Time in Forever and the particularly powerful Let It Go, which I predict will have a very good shot at the best song Oscar (it's already had a Golden Globe nomination). All the music in the film has a much more Broadway feel to it than other Disney fare, which is largely down to the songs being written by (the appropriately named) Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Tony winning songwriter Robert Lopez, who wrote the music for Avenue Q and the Book of Mormon. Let It Go is belted out magnificently by Idina Menzel, who voices Elsa and also has a theatrical background and a Tony under her belt for her performance in Wicked. The impressive vocals lend themselves perfectly to the dramatic mountain landscapes in the background of a stunning sequence where Elsa finds herself free to explore the limits of her powers.
The visuals in this sequence make it one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever seen in an animated film. Elsa waves her hand and stamps her feet, and builds an incredible ice castle, where the floors and pillars branch out like snowflakes crystallising and chandeliers form on the ceiling like icicles. It's a celebration of creativity and a dazzling display of what animators are capable of - you get the impression that they took the same opportunity Elsa did to let their imagination loose. The rest of the film is just as beautiful. The textures of the ice and snow are immaculately realised, and the blizzard raised in the finale feels like it stretches off for eternity, with stranded ships looming out of the gloom. Even things that are taken for granted in animation nowadays, like skin tones, are perfect - the characters look cold throughout without resorting to blue tones, chattering teeth, etc.
The most awesome thing about this film though, representing a landmark step in Disney's catalogue and one that I hope we see more of in future movies, is its treatment of the two heroines. At the start of the film Anna looks like she is in danger of becoming another identikit Disney princess, singing about her dreams of falling in love before deciding to marry a handsome prince just one short musical number after meeting him for the first time. She then gets mocked for this decision for the entire film, by her sister and Kristoff especially, and by the end is very much aware of how ridiculous an idea this was. Compared with the romantic plots of the older classics like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, where the princesses seem to have been waiting their entire lives to fall instantly in love with the first random stranger in a crown who comes their way, this is groundbreaking material. Both sisters have well-rounded and thought out personalities - one extroverted, one introverted - and their interaction is a completely believable and realistic relationship between two sisters. They are each independent and neither fully understands the needs and emotions that motivate the other, but they are still the most important people in each others' lives. Their relationship, not that of any romantic entanglement, is what drives the plot and carries the emotion of the entire film, and as they are the first Disney princesses to have ever done that, that is pretty awesome.
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