[SPOLIER LEVEL: MINOR]
So I just went to see 'Long Way North' ('Tout en Haut du Monde') and it was beautifully dramatic.
Just from looking at the poster, I could tell it was going to have a line-less design where the shading would rely on darker versions of the base colours, not just black or brown. It's been a while since I've seen something like that so I was pretty excited to see it again, and sure enough I got what I wanted! The only lines you could see were the ones made for facial features like the nose and eyes, but overall it kept true to it's design.
The colours are from a creamy chalk-like palette, with the exceptions of when you would see an object being lightened by the sun, then it's like seeing a piece of gold wrapping paper right in front of you! My particular favourite background was the wide shot of icebergs with the sun shining on the tops on them.
The animation itself however can be a bit choppy. You can easily tell it was done frame by frame, which is fine! But whenever there would be a close-up shot of a character's face, frames can CLEARLY be seen missing when the lips move like an anime character's! I have to admit, it's weird seeing an anime technique in a French animated film. Despite all this, the long shots which show the characters walking or running are smooth and all frames are in tact.
The story is about a young Russian aristocrat named Sasha, who escapades to the North Pole to find her missing grandfather, who is rumoured to have sunk with his ship when trying to plant the Russian flag into the North Pole.
Unlike the honest-to-God mess that was Don Bluth's 'Anastasia', the film's characters and events are all fictitious, so there are no misrepresentations of Russian history here! The story appears to be one thing but then becomes something completely different.
Sasha is a snobbish girl who dreams of more in life other than dancing with a foppish and "most unorthodox" prince (who is only in the film for the first 30 minutes so he's pretty much pointless). She at first replicates a cardboard cut-out of a 90's Disney princess, except she's more obnoxious. She assumes every poor working woman is her maid. So why is this film worth watching if she's the protagonist? Well, I kept thinking back to Chihiro from 'Spirited Away' and how much her whiny attitude annoyed me at first. She did change and learn a lot of lessons throughout the movie. It wasn't her fault she was annoying, she just didn't know any better! It's the same thing with Sasha. She grew up in an aristocratic home and knows nothing about life outside of that. So when she does run away to find her grandfather, you feel satisfied when you see her being told off for being disrespectful and when she's being rewarded for working hard for her survival.
And yeah, let's talk about the running away scene. There's a pop song playing over it. Oh yes. There are pop songs in this films and I hate every single one of them. They do not match the 19th Century setting and they're pointless. The soundtrack itself though is lovely and worth listening to by itself.
And I know this isn't the film's fault but, the lip syncing of the English dub is really distracting! I know you can't fit all the words in a fast-speaking French character (in Russia) but at times the voice overs are still going when the character's lip stop moving! Who edited this?
All the characters in the story also have a similar arc to Sasha. You see them at first be cut-out and unlikeable, but as the film goes on they learn from their mistakes and build on their personality, making them more likeable, as if you're getting to know them bit by bit. The script itself is also in this category. You sense it might be predictable and go one way but ends up becoming a more dramatic story, where the characters have close encounters with death and when they hurt themselves or are freezing cold, you feel every bit of pain with them. I swear the cinema got colder when they reached the blizzard! Or maybe cinemas are just always cold, I don't know.
Overall, 'Long Way North' is a beautifully coloured film with an intense storyline that you should DEFINITELY take the kids to! I am sick of seeing too many ******* kids movies being comedies. Give them some more drama in their cinema experiences!
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