Masterful Movie

Excellent, smart action film.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

I consider "The Snow Queen" from Hans Christian Andersen to be one of the most beautiful fairy tales ever written: The story is incredibly inspiring and is also wonderfully told, having a level of subtlety and lyricism that made it much more complex that it could seem at first sight.Sadly, most of the cinematic adaptations made of that story usually fail to capture the charm and inspiring qualities from its source material, keeping only the most basic aspects of the plot or changing it completely (I think that the most notorious example of this would be "Frozen", the most recent Disney production which despite being supposedly "inspired" by The Snow Queen, it actually doesn't have anything in common with that fairy tale.Fortunately, this is not the case of this film, which shows the best qualities of the Golden Age of Russian Animation: An exquisite and flawless artwork, a charming characterization that makes this movie to be incredibly enjoyable to watch from beginning to end...But above all, it best quality is to keeps the "heart" of the original fairy tale in a way never done by any other adaptation of the same story, being for that reason my favorite audiovisual version of this timeless tale of love and friendship.This is the kind of stuff that computers would be never able to do, disregard of all technological development from the recent years. Is easy to see why the great Hayao Miyazaki considered this an inspiration to continue working on the animated industry. Considering that it was thanks to this movie that we were lucky to have many of the masterpieces done by him makes it even better.10/10

for one who discovers it in childhood and believes, after years, that it is a splendid gift for soul, another definition is impossible. because it is not an adaptation. only a delicate delight. innocent, subtle, fresh, adorable. it is a meeting. with a fairy tale but, more important, with a art of cartoon. it is a magic occasion to understand a world. very fragile, almost dark, strange and in a way, cold. four years after Stalin, a year after Ungaria intervention. and this basis makes it profound and essential. like an adventure of spirit. like testimony of a form of resistance against evil. so, it is not exactly an adaptation. maybe, a parable. this is its secret. secret of the art to remain a delight. secret to be , at every age, a isle of peace and joy.

A Russian animation film based on a tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It tells the story of child Gerda in her quest to rescue her beloved brother Kay, kidnapped by the beautiful but icy Snow Queen. It is, above all, a story of fraternal love, and how love conquers everything if you fight against the adversity. Love melts the coldest heart... has a meaning in this story.The animation is very good according to the standards of the 1950s, with beautiful backgrounds, and great human movement. The drawing of the Snow Queen is gorgeous and her drawing reminded me of the Socialist Realism paintings and sculptures with angled facial features and muscular strong bodies. Also excellent and very Japanese-style (Edo Period) is the drawing and movement of the sea waves. The image of the painting "The Great Wave of Kanagawa" by Katsushika Hokusai came immediately to my head. The film shares some visuals with Disney, and the little character that introduces the story reminded me of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio; he even has the little umbrella with him! However, to be true, Disney was doing more advanced things (both visually and re the complexity of the scripts) at the time. The classic music by Artemiy Ayvazyan is truly beautiful, and typical of long-footage animation movies at the time. The Russian dubbing is also very charming.What fails, to me, is the way the story is told (the script) and the plainness of the characters, which can be explained by the fact that the movie is targeted to a public of small children. The only characters I found interesting and believable were the ones of the little child thief and the the witchy Snow Queen. The same can be said of the action of the movie, which is not that thrilling for adults.The film got different awards for animation in international film festivals, Cannes and Venice included, at the time. It is also attributed to Miyazaki saying that he loved this movie and that convinced him to continue with animation in a moment when he had doubts whether to make of animation his career.

I was entranced by this film when I saw it a kiddie matinee in the 60s, and upon repeat viewings it is truly wonderful. I just don't understand why this film has not been given a proper treatment in the west. I've seen three english versions; the original US release with Art Linkletter was what I saw in the theater. A few years ago I chanced upon a strange version with the original elf narration restored, but with portions of the score dropped out to make way for horrible contemporary pop songs. Thirdly there was a version shown on PBS sans Linkletter, but with an entirely new soundtrack, which fared better than the pop version I mentioned (though not much better) Still the imagery is fabulous regardless of which botched presentation it is, and I would go out of my way to see an unadulterated version even without the benefit of translation.