Lately, I’ve been trying to rewatch all favorite animations from my childhood. Stated with Monsters INC, went through some classics such as Dumbo and Lady and the Tramp, and finished with Mulan. Looking for something new to watch I found Anastasia – an animation I loved as a child that I have forgotten about.
Half-way through the film, I went “wait a minute, Disney never uses this type of camera movement and what’s with their faces?”. At the end of the movie, my only thought was “Okay, it was nice, it reminded me of my childhood and I love Bartok, but something was missing… there was no Disney magic”. To my surprise, I found that the animation is a product of 20th Century Fox, directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.
Well, that explained a lot.
I am not going to focus on the story, the music or animation techniques used for the production, but rather, on these little details that I believe are the reasons I did not feel the “magic”. Thinking about Disney’s magic brought me to the comparison with the so-called “x-factor” – you can be a great performer and still lack this last bit of something that makes you a star. So, if Disney’s magic is the x-factor of animation, does Anastasia have x-factor?
I will start with the character design. I like the designs of Rasputin and Bartok – they show the personality traits of the characters and creates the classic combination of a villain, obsessed with his revenge, and the simple servant. However, we never find out why is he so passionate about killing Anastasia. His motive remains unclear, and so does his existence in the plotline. They could have had all these troubles even without him.
The character design of Anastasia and Dimitri is slightly disappointing. There is nothing special about them, no character can be found in their facial features and they remind of a generalization of all Disney princesses and princes. Even though they have the cartoon looking design, they have overly realistic expressions. As a result, these unmemorable characters have so many facial expressions that it is hard to follow their emotions. What is more, the acting of the characters was so realistic that it felt wrong at some moments. The same goes for Anastasia’s grandmother – not sure if that’s her or the evil stepmother of Cinderella that simply dyed her hair.
The second thing I noticed, while watching the animation, were the blurry backgrounds. The scene where she is walking happily around the castle, the character looks out of place as if it is a mixture of live-action and animation.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that the animation of the film is beautiful and I appreciate the effort put into the little details such as showing how nervous she is before meeting her grandmother – tearing the ballet program into pieces.
Salt and Peaches,
Nicole