Frozen (Disney, 2013) 7/10
I watched last night. At the start I struggled with myself wondering if I should continue. It was against the grain for me in my present state, but I stuck it out, got far less bothered and after ~25-30% it didn't bother me, I got into it. Some of the dialog went by me and for whatever reason I saw no subtitles, at least during a song (it's filled with songs, is a kind of cartoon musical). Well, not filled, but there are many. A protagonist will suddenly burst into song, something I'm really not comfortable with, at least presently. Now, musically some of the songs were to me astonishing, in particular some woman there. Maybe it was uneven or more likely it was me at times with mind drifting.
I think some of the animation was entirely informed by real life human acting/movement. Maybe not a lot, but that was a great idea, it works a lot better than just drawing, etc. I'm just speculating here. Some of the imagery got old for me, again and again things turning into ice. That theme, well, they rather wore it out, it was the underlying theme of the story. Yes, I was right, it comes across as a fairy tale entirely and I wasn't surprised to see that it was based on The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen in the end credits. Near the end I suddeny thought that it could be based on a Shakespearean tragedy. Haven't read any review material yet, maybe I'll see that idea too.
Now, my thinking was that they were exploring the mind, in particular people's predilections in delusional states of mind to think/feel that their angry emotions will have negative consequences far in excess of any rational considerations. IOW, the struggle to deal with the subconscious and the resulting outlandish struggles/fantasies. Thus, Elsa, the older sister to Anna, who becomes queen when their royal parents die at sea, has a predilection to turn things to ice. Even her parents recognized that and told her she must masquerade her powers, never reveal them, live a cloistered and shut-in life therefore and shut out everyone including her little sister, with whom she'd been formerly intimate. So, it becomes a parable for the life of a person struggling with unconscious repressed material, possibly experiences they don't want to remember or unexplored emotions, taboo motives, thoughts, etc.
Much of the animation in terms of personal characterization was really excellent and it made me wonder. Did they have actors stage this and then create animation based on that? Most animation I'm familiar with does not have the real human nuances down like they so often did here.
Searching this thread, I read a several reactions and some people mention The Lion King, that this is a return to its greatness. Now, I didn't like The Lion King. I bought the DVD and was disappointed, period. I like Frozen quite a bit better. However, I'm pretty much a giant Pixar fan.
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