Anastasia

Release Date: November 21, 1997

Watch Date: March 31, 2023

 

    There used to be a lot of confusion surrounding this movie, because a lot of people kind of remember it as a Disney princess movie. To be fair to them, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it usually is a duck. In this case though, it’s a movie made by Don Bluth who did used to be an animator for Disney before leaving the company, and a lot of his films could easily masquerade as Disney classics. Of course, now Disney owns the company that originally produced ‘Anastasia’ so technically the film is now a Disney princess movie, so no one who ever remembered it as such was ever wrong and the world can keep on spinning.

    I don’t know why people have so clung to the idea that Anastasia survived the cold-blooded murder of the rest of her family. Maybe it’s because their deaths were so tragic and so violent that it makes us feel better that someone survived, that an entire royal legacy wasn’t wiped out in one callous act. But unfortunately the real Anastasia, along with her parents and siblings, did not survive the Russian revolution, so we have to live in fairy tales.

    Luckily for us, this is a particularly good fairy tale. Post revolution Russia is not where you think you’d get a song and dance number, but the songs are actually quite good. The characters are actually quite enjoyable and there’s good chemistry between Anastasia and Dimitri. You truly root for her to find the life and the family she’s missing, and since Dimitri and Vlad are simply trying to escape communist Russia, you root for them as well.

    The facial animation can be a bit off putting, occasionally, and characters don’t seem to want to sit still for very long, there’s always some sort of movement, but it doesn’t really take away from the film as a whole, it’s just something that will catch you off guard once and awhile.

    Rasputin was the obvious choice for a villain, and he does make a good one. He’s got a classic Disney-style villain song, and the character having sold his soul for magical powers, has a good motivation for wanting the Romanov’s dead. Mostly because he doesn’t like them and he cursed them so now he can’t die, but still. Not a bad motivation as far as villains go. I think Rasputin has gotten a pretty bad rap in media, he was not in any way shape or form a good guy, but he was not solely responsible for the downfall of the Romanov’s and pre-revolution Russia. He was definitely an anti-monarchy propaganda tool, but the Romanov dynasty, and Russia as a whole, had a whole load of problems before he ever showed up on the scene and helped the Empress of Russia feel better about her sickly son.

    I’m happy that this has become part of the Disney canon, and that – even if it’s only technically – Anastasia has joined the ranks of the Disney princesses. A little girl that has captured the hearts, minds and imaginations of the world for over a century, I don’t know if she would have enjoyed this movie, but it’s nice to have at least one of the Romanovs, in one way or another, get a happy ending.