Pocahontas (1995)

I guess I don't really have that much of a problem when a movie retells stories from my youth in kiddie-friendly terms, as when we get animated versions of such classics as Snow White, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, Cinderella, Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland and others.

But when you go and reinvent history to convenience your core audience, THAT'S when I have a problem.

After the gargantuan success of Walt Disney Studios' latter-day triumphs the likes of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and their original story The Lion King (even though the term "original story" may be debated by the creators of Kimba the White Lion, but anyway...), everyone involved felt it necessary to build on their new-found prestige by giving the world - and kiddies of all ages - their version of the endearing legend of Pocahontas.

Pocahontas: the tale of the British invading the unspoiled shores of North America to bring disease and gentrification to Native Americans of all braces. And in spite of it all, the ten year-old daughter of a leading tribal chief stopped her father from executing John Smith, one of the members of the Virginia company, and herself became a figurehead to the British in their colonization of The States and "civilization" of the "ignorant savages".

Oh, and cute animals, too. Don't forget the cute animals. And add a talking tree. And songs! There's gotta be songs.

Needless to say, a straight telling of the Pocahontas legend just wouldn't work as children's entertainment. And with Walt Disney needing yet another "Princess" to add to their long line of young female embodiments of "girl power", a few truths need be sacrificed at the altar of The Almighty Disney Dollar.

So it came to be that Pocahontas was launched onto an unsuspecting public. With lots of songs, symbolism, long strands of hair blowing across faces and the most embarrassing thing Mel Gibson's gotten into without police involvement.

First of all, the story's been changed a tad from real actual history. Herein, Captain John Smith (Mel Gibson) leads a motley group of English sailors, soldiers and roustabouts to the New World to plunder its riches for England under the supervision of Governor Ratcliffe (David Odgen Stiers), the prerequisite sneering, declamatory bad guy.

As the British close in on the shores of the New World, conflicted Chief Powhatan (Russell Means, a familiar figure from the 1973 Wounded Knee standoff) has pledged his daughter, Pocahontas (Irene Bedard), to be married to Kocoum (James Apaumut Fall), the village's greatest warrior. Pocahontas' life changes, however, when Smith and Company's ship lands near her village. With the Brits searching for gold they mistakenly believe is available there (just like it was on the West Coast), and Powhatan's tribe believing these white men will destroy them, Smith and Pocahontas have difficulty preventing war, and saving their love for each other.

WHAT?? Wh-wh...Mel Gibson and a ten year-old girl??! Everybody relax, calm down - they made it so that these crazy kids are in their 20s, at least, and both possessing bodies and faces beautiful. Because let's face it: who wants to pay good money to see ugly people fall in love?

Anyway.

To help further along the story, we have a cute raccoon named Meeko (John Kassir), a flighty hummingbird named Flit (Frank Welker), a snooty British pug named Percy (Danny Mann), and a talking willow tree named, naturally, Grandmother Willow (Linda Hunt). What do any of these characters have to do with the legend of Pocahontas?

Well, while Meeko, Flit and Percy chase each other around, Grandmother Willow dispenses sage American Indian wisdom that sounds more befitting of a Chinese fortune cookie. So, you see?

But it's okay: none of the animals talk, otherwise it would all just be silly.

Directors Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg painted their palate with various shades of purple and fuchsia and pink and such, if only to remind us that this is, after all, Pocahontas' story. Of course, as far as imagery goes, it's probably only coincidence that many images remind the attentive Disney viewer of other pre-Pocahontas Disney works.

Like these two images, the first from Pocahontas, the other from Aladdin:












Try telling me THIS was a coincidence!

There was another showing an overhead shot of Percy stuck inside a log and lying in the middle of the woods that is an ABSOLUTE COPY of the beginning shot from The Nightmare Before Christmas, another Disney work. I'm guessing that a lot of laziness took place in the studio at this time. Just saying.

We also have a storyline involving forbidden love, cuckolded Indian warriors, symbolism of the white man's greed in the unspoiled New World and wind tousling long strands of black hair, which took the work of no less than...lessee... two, three, four, uh... okay, no less than twenty-eight writers. Yes; twenty plus eight. Twenty-eight. So you should forgive a little jumbled thinking here and there. Plot lines that go nowhere. Empty caricatures. A final scene that wraps up everything in the last two-three minutes and still makes you feel short-changed. Maybe you should forgive all that. Maybe not.

And it's not like the voice work should be faulted. Bedard has a strong voice as our lead heroine (for whom cliff-diving, extreme canoe-paddling and speed tree-climbing are fortes), and Gibson actually does a typical stalwart job as our broad-chested, blond and tanned British hero (you see a discrepancy there?), even Stiers' Ratcliffe is suitably sinister if unnecessary as anything but the story's bad guy. At least they had the foresight to cast many Native American actors in the important parts. All that being said, you can only do so much good in a story that breezes through history and leaves out the boring stuff about constant battles, deaths, rampant racism and foisting of beliefs on a people who were here first.

(oops, how did that soapbox get under my feet there? Let me get down...okay, where was I?)

At least everyone gets a bouncy, upbeat song to sing. Thanks to Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, who have had Disney success before and since, and an Oscar or two along the way. And admittedly, there are good songs: "Just Around the Riverbend" is a sweet song about listening to no one but yourself (always a nice thing to teach young girls...). "Colors of the Wind" is a good, preachy paean to listening to what your planet has to tell you...or else suffer the wrath of Mother Earth. "Mine, Mine, Mine" is a nice little ditty to greed and laying claim to all you survey. And "Savages" helps teach why two different races cannot tolerate one another because they just want to kill and destroy.

Yay.

Give me a break; as someone who was raised on Disney flicks the likes of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book and Lady and the Tramp, I am well aware that liberties are taken with some literary works so that they can be better translated into terms that youth can understand. History is something else, though.

Think about it this way; would a Disney version of the Titanic's sinking have to be changed so it would appeal to the kiddie demographic? You better believe it.

Would Disney add singing and dancing attic mice to the story of Anne Frank? Of course they would.

What is the possibility that a Disney-fied cartoon about the Vietnam war would have a happy ending? A very good possibility, that.

I don't even want to think of what would happen if they ever did an animated version of the horrors of Auschwitz.

I guess that's my biggest gripe with Pocahontas. If they're gonna do a movie about it, fine. Just DON'T make it a kiddie comic about girl power and true love where neither one was in evidence as far as real life is concerned.

In the eyes of Pocahontas, there is NO color to this wind: it's all just black and white.

Pocahontas (1995) 2010-10-03T17:13:00-07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: admin