I bought this film thinking it was a foreign import that I had seen many years ago, but nonesuch was the case. The film I was looking for was "The Polar Bear King", a Norwegian production dealing with a very similar story about a young princess searching for her abducted prince.
"Snow Queen" however, is not set in the middle ages, but circa 1900 in the cold reaches of a Nordic landscape (even though everyone speaks English). We're presented with a sprawling magical epic of young love challenged by the callous heart of a queen who herself seeks to conquer what she already had, but failed to see.
There's a lot of subtext and other themes going on here. We see the Snow Queen, and witness her cold manifest itself on both physical, emotional and even spiritual levels. She goes forth and sees that another wants, and covets another's possession. She exercises her power, and so our tale begins. Is she really evil and cold, or is there something missing from her life? Perhaps there's even more to her that we as yet fail to discover? Again, the story reveals all.
During the unfolding of the tale our young protagonist ventures forth into a realm that lies "straight on til morning", to borrow from Disney's "Peter Pan". There she meets eccentric antagonists and other characters, mostly female, and mostly with an agenda. Our young heroine must brave, challenge and escape those who pose a roadblock to her ultimate objective.
The production values are the usual top notch from Halmark. They don't spare expense when it comes to filming their intimate epics, nor do they waste money on extravagance that will not be used nor seen. We see a town that's in transition from becoming a small intimate affair where everyone knows everyone else, to becoming more of almost a small city ready to latently embrace the industrial revolution that's occurred in the outside world. We see vast wastes of snow capped mountains, and lush green forests and gardens. We see bandits and soldiers and a whole feast of visuals as our gallant heroine moves from one episode of her adventure to another.
The cinematography is basic, but unlike a lot of other made for TV movies, is not bland for the sake of expediency. The camera angles are a bit more dynamic and inspired, but not quite the caliber of theatrical release. A combination of good camera usage and quality art direction gives the audience a very sumptuous TV film production.
My critique is that it's not the film I wanted, but I enjoyed it for what it was. It's an American film made for American audiences based on some Scandinavian folklore, in regards to a tale that has some role reversal from the familiar tale of Gilgamesh.
Everything aside, it is worth a night's viewing if you have nothing better to do.
Enjoy.
