Writer: Erdman Penner (based on the original tale by Giambattista Basile)
Director: Clyde Geronimi, Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Les Clark
Studio: Walt Disney Productions
Director: Clyde Geronimi, Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Les Clark
Studio: Walt Disney Productions
Watched on: 26/12/2020
Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Sleeping Beauty
Ratings:
A classic "glad I've seen it" but the film was pretty bad overall. Obviously a lot of leeway has to be given for the fact the film is 61 years old at this point. So it would be pointless to go into detail about how poor the film does in terms of women's agency, stereotypes and consent but obviously that does form part of my very subjective low score. I will say that this film really highlights (what I think is) the point of the Bechdel Test though, as the 3 fairies are a big focus of the story and talk lots to each other, passing the test, but then for example, Aurora's mum - the literal queen - appears on screen but doesn't actually say a word throughout the entire film.
The story's pretty poor. As funny as the idea of a witch cursing a baby to death because she wasn't invited to a party is, the actual plot had little substance and basically drove itself. Things happened exactly as they were supposed to and there were literally zero complications - the only potential issue was Aurora and Philip falling in love with the 'peasant' version of each other, so a non-issue. Felt a bit like a panto.
The characters were pretty boring in general. As suggested above though, Maleficent is brilliant. I'd honestly put her in the top tier of Disney villains, because on top of her flair for the dramatic, she actually has a plan in place to realise her very clear ambition (literally killing Aurora lol). There could have been far better depth to all the characters though, Maleficent included.
Animation was nice but not amazing (but obviously we're talking manually painted cels, so fair play), although it was cool too see huge names like Kahl, Thomas and Johnston in the credits. I did actually notice the odd error here or there but overall it was smooth, expressive and a good balance between realistic and exaggerated. A lot of stuff in it was also cute and charming, which ties into the directing as well. I think they managed to have some pretty good storytelling mechanics in there actually, like the spells coming out of the chimney and the little smirk on the raven's face as it overhears the conversation.
So yeah, overall poor film that's terrible to women but has a cool villain (who even turns into a dragon). Undeniably a classic but definitely not timeless.