Film: Frozen
May. 27th, 2014 12:51 pmReason for watching it: It's nominated for the long-form dramatic presentation Hugo, and I'm hoping to see most of the slate before Worldcon, (though probably not the random bits of superhero comic franchise). Also I've read some really interesting reviews and discussions of the film. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
staranise discusses how: even if you're avoiding someone because of how much they matter to you, all they see is your absence. jimhines points to it as a rare example of a realistic portrayal of an abusive relationship where: the charming fellow you just met — the man who flatters you, says all the right things, and makes you feel so amazing — turns out to be flat-out evil. elialshadowpine wrote something really interesting under lock. Although I have seen plenty of reviews that point out what's problematic about the film, it sounded like it might well be interesting as well as being a generic Disney property primarily marketed at young girls.
Circumstances of watching it: I was absolutely exhausted by the time I got to the end of term and the bank holiday weekend, so I spent most of the three days curled up withjack recuperating. It seemed like watching a film would be a relaxing thing to do, given we had a few hours spare for once. We hadn't previously tried streaming contemporary commercial films, as we usually either wait for something to come out on DVD or watch it at the cinema. We tried buying Frozen from Amazon's streaming service, but having taken our money they presented a film which played for 3-10 seconds before stopping for half a minute to load the next few frames. A bit of buffering I would accept but that was completely unwatchable. So I won't be giving Amazon any money for streamed films in the future. So we ended up paying again to buy it from Virgin's on-demand service, which was slightly more expensive but gave us a film which played smoothly throughout.
Verdict: Frozen is a fairly average kids' movie with some sublime moments, and makes a reasonable stab at subverting compulsory heterosexuality.
( detailed review, with spoilers ) I would not at all say that the film is groundbreakingly feminist, but it's a lot less actively sexist than it might have been.
After we watched the film we went and looked up the plot of the original Snow Queen. Since the Wikipedia summary is very nearly as long as the story itself, I ended up reading the Hans Christian Andersen original aloud tojack. I understand why fairytale purists are disappointed, but wow, I am really quite glad that Disney didn't in fact make any kind of faithful (or even really connected) version of The Snow Queen, because that story is seriously incoherent. Though it's kind of impressive to see just how much influence it has on CS Lewis; there are really strong parallels between the Snow Queen and Kay, and the White Witch and Edmund in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and I'm pretty sure the relationship between Kay and Gerda influenced Polly and Digory in The magician's nephew.
staranise discusses how: even if you're avoiding someone because of how much they matter to you, all they see is your absence. jimhines points to it as a rare example of a realistic portrayal of an abusive relationship where: the charming fellow you just met — the man who flatters you, says all the right things, and makes you feel so amazing — turns out to be flat-out evil. elialshadowpine wrote something really interesting under lock. Although I have seen plenty of reviews that point out what's problematic about the film, it sounded like it might well be interesting as well as being a generic Disney property primarily marketed at young girls. Circumstances of watching it: I was absolutely exhausted by the time I got to the end of term and the bank holiday weekend, so I spent most of the three days curled up with
jack recuperating. It seemed like watching a film would be a relaxing thing to do, given we had a few hours spare for once. We hadn't previously tried streaming contemporary commercial films, as we usually either wait for something to come out on DVD or watch it at the cinema. We tried buying Frozen from Amazon's streaming service, but having taken our money they presented a film which played for 3-10 seconds before stopping for half a minute to load the next few frames. A bit of buffering I would accept but that was completely unwatchable. So I won't be giving Amazon any money for streamed films in the future. So we ended up paying again to buy it from Virgin's on-demand service, which was slightly more expensive but gave us a film which played smoothly throughout. Verdict: Frozen is a fairly average kids' movie with some sublime moments, and makes a reasonable stab at subverting compulsory heterosexuality.
( detailed review, with spoilers ) I would not at all say that the film is groundbreakingly feminist, but it's a lot less actively sexist than it might have been.
After we watched the film we went and looked up the plot of the original Snow Queen. Since the Wikipedia summary is very nearly as long as the story itself, I ended up reading the Hans Christian Andersen original aloud to
jack. I understand why fairytale purists are disappointed, but wow, I am really quite glad that Disney didn't in fact make any kind of faithful (or even really connected) version of The Snow Queen, because that story is seriously incoherent. Though it's kind of impressive to see just how much influence it has on CS Lewis; there are really strong parallels between the Snow Queen and Kay, and the White Witch and Edmund in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and I'm pretty sure the relationship between Kay and Gerda influenced Polly and Digory in The magician's nephew.