I'm sure I've seen this film before but for the life of me I cannot remember when. Perhaps I saw it when I was very young and not since but it is equally like that my "memory" of it has just been created by cultural reference points, clips and a general knowledge that it exists. Either way when I sat to watch this the other day as a man in his mid-30's it did very much feel like I was coming to the total film for the first time and I was quite surprised by how simply it engaged and entertained me.
The plot is simple and will be known to all and within this telling we do pretty much go from one bit to the next with little in the way of extrapolation or development – a potential problem for older viewers looking to get into it, but it still manages to work. A big part of this is the sense of fairy tale that it delivers, because it puts you in a frame of mind suitable for this. The "opening on a shot of a book" start to this film has been done since many times so it is easy to overlook how effective it can be, but here it works very well and the whole film captures the feel that this opening is suggesting. The telling is lightly comic but avoids cynicism or cruel humour and instead goes for a light touch; although I do love the edge that modern cynicism gives to some films, I will concede that it was quite refreshing to have a film free of it. The broad strokes of a fairy tale are here – the good fairies are non-threatening and comic while the evil fairy is tall, lean, strict and menacing; the prince is handsome, the princess stunning etc and it does feel like being read to as a child because it is simple yet vivid in the way it is told.
It is easy (and tempting) to look at the film with a cynical modern eye and criticise it for its presentation of beauty and its gender politics but, while I do believe that things like this film and Barbie and others had a major role in shaping the view of beauty, it is not a thought that occurred to me once while watching the film. Instead it charmed me to its agenda, not my own and I would suggest anyone watching this and muttering their way through it has simply not come with an open mind. The voice work perhaps lacks the character of modern animated films, but all are good in their various roles – in particular the evil fairy is strong in her presence.
Overall Sleeping Beauty is considered a classic and it is so for good reason – because it is. It is the type of film that parents will want their children to see because it is simple, engaging, well presented, beautiful to look at and tells a story that has danger and evil in it while also showing the power of love and that good will always prevail. Of course this is not true – but this is a fairy tale and it takes you with it while you watch. It says something that over 50 years after this was made that a audience of all ages can sit to watch this and all come away loving it. A delight.
