The smash-hit Disney animated movie Frozen apparently was originally planned as a version of Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairytale 'The Snow Queen', first published in 1844. Yet as any Andersen aficionado will swiftly affirm, the finished product's storyline, although unquestionably very engrossing and captivating in its own right, bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Andersen original. On 4 February 2020, however, I watched on DVD an absolutely charming, exquisitely-rendered animated movie that did faithfully portray it.
Entitled The Snow Queen, directed by Julian Dominic Gibbs, and produced by the UK's BBC TV in 2005 as a television film, it began life as a series of classical Snow Queen-themed songs composed by Paul K. Joyce for a Barbican concert two years earlier, but which afterwards formed the basis for the development of an entire movie based around them. This became the movie that I watched.
As in the original fairytale, it tells the story of a young girl named Gerda (played by girl soprano Sydney Rae White), whose playmate, a boy named Kay (Pax Baldwin), is stolen away by the merciless Snow Queen (Tiffany Amber Knight) and taken to her icy palace in the Far North. Many years previously, an evil magician had created a vile mirror that created ugly, poisonous reflections of anything or anyone that gazed into it, until one day the mirror broke, shattering into countless shards, but preserving its evil. For if a shard should enter a person's eye or heart, he or she would see only ugliness in the world and their heart would grow cold.
When the Snow Queen abducted Kay, a shard from the mirror had entered his eye and another had pierced his heart, enslaving him to the Snow Queen's malevolent will. But brave little Gerda boldly sets off in pursuit of Kay, determined to rescue him, and along the way she encounters all manner of friends and foes (see, I told you Frozen's story was nothing like the original Snow Queen fairytale!).
The operatic songs are very ethereal, the blending and often direct superimposing of animation upon live-action absolutely stunning, and with a raven voiced by Patrick Stewart there is even a hat-tip to Hollywood. Another notable film star appearing in it is English actress Juliet Stevenson, who plays Gerda's mother.
The Snow Queen is a superb live-action/animated musical film to unwind to and simply let it go (oops, sorry, wrong film! 😄). And here as a taster is an official trailer for this magical, exquisitely-wrought movie. Moreover, at least at the time of my posting this review, the entire movie can be watched for free here on YouTube.
And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
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