Animated musical incorperates fresh themes

Let’s talk about Disney. Disney and its musicals.

It’s no secret that Disney has a long history with the animated musical. In fact, the medium itself owed the greater part of its existence to Walt Disney and his work. It was Disney’s 1937 animated adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that put the animated musical on the map, acting as a catalyst for the addition of animated features to the Academy Awards. Since then, masterpieces such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King have kept the animated musical alive and well.

That said, Disney’s animated musicals have always faced issues. Despite their quality, they are frequently criticized for condescendingly simplified plots, insulting historical inaccuracies and weak female leads. Good and evil are always clearly defined, the princess always finds her prince, love conquers all and all of the other sickeningly sweet clichés typical of such stories.

Then comes Frozen turning all of that on its head. And it really is delightful to watch.

In arguably the most self-aware musical they have ever created, the Disney company adapts Frozen from the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of The Snow Queen. Set in the fictional city of Arendelle in what appears to be Monarchical Russia. Elsa, the first princess of the region, is born with the ability to create and manipulate ice and snow but is unable to control her power fully. Following an accident where she nearly kills her sister Anna, Elsa’s father sequesters Elsa and encourages her to suppress her powers, and in doing so alienates his daughters from the world and each other.

Fast forward many years, and Elsa is set to inherit the throne following her parents death. Anna, meanwhile, is hopelessly taken by a prince whom she insists on marrying after only just meeting him. After an argument at Elsa’s inauguration regarding Anna’s plans, Elsa inadvertently reveals her powers and flees the city, building an icy palace atop a mountain and plunging the kingdom into an unending winter.

Anna, alongside a mountaineer named Kristoff, sets out to make amends with Elsa and bring her back home.

A great deal of the film’s charm is how cleverly it subverts most of Disney’s most infamous stereotypes. The film makes it a point to deliberately poke fun at itself in what can only be described as a method to “modernize” the Disney musical without stripping it of its archaic charm.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the construction of the film’s characters, which are among the most endearing Disney has produced. Elsa and Anna, voiced by Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell, respectively, capture most of the screen time in the film and rightfully so. They work as a very clever juxtaposition of the old Disney versus the new Disney.

Anna encapsulates many of Disney’s old, naive stereotypes. She falls in love with the first man she meets; she rushes into marriage, with a “love conquers all” mentality; she runs through open fields singing about how she wants more in life, despite being royalty. She reflects Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel and Jasmine of prior Disney films.

Elsa, meanwhile, deals with far darker problems: isolation, alienation and a fear of herself that is so deep that she deliberately keeps people away for fear of killing them. She is cynical and jaded, not taken with the, dare we say, fairy tale naivety of her sister. Juxtaposing these two characters strikes a balance between the two extremes, allowing Disney to attack its own tropes while still holding true to them. Furthermore, the film is very focused — it recognizes that the charm of the film lies in the interplay between the sisters and keeps the focus on them, keeping the conflict both very grand and very personal, increasing the tension in every scene.

Visually, the film is stunning. The CGI work in the film is fluid, well designed and very impressive throughout. My only criticisms would be a personal preference for the older style of hand drawn animation and in the character designs. Both criticisms play into each other to an extent. I feel as though the movie may have lent itself better to being hand drawn, because such a form typically lends itself better to variations in style.

No matter how good the animation is (and it is fantastic), most CGI cartoons have a tendency to be stylistically identical. Compare Elsa’s design to Rapunzel’s from Tangled. While they are clearly different characters, both look like plastic dolls produced from the same Disney toy line; there’s not enough stylistic variation.

The environments, however, are wonderfully rendered. Witnessing the cinematic rise of the Ice Palace is worth the price of admission alone.

However, one cannot have an animated musical adventure without music. And the soundtrack of Frozen is easily the best Disney has produced in years. Abandoning the more pop-oriented soundtracks of many of Disney’s more recent films, the songs return to the grand masterpieces typical of Disney classics. “Let it Go,” sung by Elsa during the building of her palace, is nominated for numerous awards, and rightfully so, although personally, this reviewer preferred a reprisal of “For the First Time in Forever,” where Elsa and Anna have a sort of musical duel, perfectly highlighting the depth of both the love and conflict between the two.

Overall, Frozen is a splendid revitalization of the Disney musical. It puts fresh spins on familiar concepts, has an excellent cast of characters and a soundtrack that keeps the film alive and beautiful if at all possible, give it a watch; it will be time well spent.

Overall rating: 4.5/5