Writting about The Lion King has proved immensely difficult.
For every fiction films-geek generation, for every movie enthusiast, there is always the one movie that manages, at a particular turning point, to make its selected individuals realize, that going into a theater, and dissapearing into the darkness, and spending the next few hours lost into that darkness can prove to be, not fun, not entertaining, BUT a -reality transcending- life changing experience.
I know it sounds heavy, but thats the way it is. Star Wars must have certainly served that particular purpose back at its age. The fellowship of the ring could be, for today's teen audiences, that "ONE" film (the pun!!).
But for me, this movie was The Lion king. I was 12 back then, and after watching it, and staring at my sister with tears in my eyes, i knew i had been enthralled by a form of art i never considered that immensely powerfull.
I still remember reading about the lion king in the papers.The collosal disney enterprise was strugling to keep its revenues up at that time, with many theme parks threatened by slow profits and bored, uninterested audiences.
The Lion King was supposed to be its saving grace, the big great hope that would re establish Disney as the leading force in entertainment."Can the King save the Queen? Box office nods positively" the paper said.
Now, i was a fan of Disney's work before lion king.Heck, every kid would fall for mickey and co. But even if it sounds pretentious or strange, i always felt that something was lacking from the majority of disney films, or in particular, off every cartoon i had layed my hands on.
Today i know i needed an epic, something more risky and more serious and more impacting than all the usual disney films. And, boy, and epic we got...
So, after ten years, how do i see the movie now? What has changed during that period? Did the film aged, just like the majority of animated films?
To start with, back at that time, i thought that every single element of lion king was new,innovative,untested,bold,unseen...
Today, the story's biblical references are a clear sight for me, the parts of the movie crediting shakespeare and some of his work(amlet among else) all too obvious. So, ok, yes, they nicked things from a couple of big, classic stories to create a GREAT script....i can live with that ;)
Watching it again made me also realize how seriously emotionally provoking the film was and how much it must had shaken me up ten years ago. Was the lion king really a kiddy movie? I'm not so sure any more. Mufasa's death for example is a devastating scene, a tragic act of complete despair. You watch this majestic, heart filling character dissapear into the stampede, you watch the injustice, you watch the cruel, calculated murder of a father by his own brother. The scene was handled with surgical precision, built up , guiding the audience's feelings from utter despair, to anger, to grief.Masterfull.
The protagonists of the film were some of the most memorable we 'd watched in a cartoon.
From the grand leader mufasa to the most malevolent and downright evil bad guy disney had ever made(Scar), to the hillariously funny supporting roles of timon and pumba, the production sported an impressively versatile cast of characters, with a series of actors that lended their voices, as excellent as their scripted roles.
I can also now, after so many disney movies, attest that part of the movie's appeal is that the crew somehow managed to fill The Lion King with some of the sense of amazement and wonderment, that visiting Africa causes.
Spectacular vistas and amazing landscapes, drawn by the talented team of designers, using truly unbelievable !!! colour palettes. I dont think that the studio managed to match ever since the colour and drawing thematics used in the lion king. Melting sunsets of firey red, gold and brown and bold green of dawn hues and greenish fields and incredible, deep blue skies..
All these, constructed and designed in mind with a strange but, ultimately, utterly captivating mixing of an unusual sense of photorealism with disney's trademark artistic elegance.
And the audio. The audio deserves a whole chapter by itself. The year that lion king was unleashed in theaters all over the world, there was nothing out there to compete with it in the music department.
Hans Zimmer had created an incredible, epical score, infused from beginning to end with chorus, lyrics, organs, or whole parts of authentic african music by lebo M. that gloriously matched the african vistas displayed on screen.
And if that wasn't enough, pop musician Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice worked together to deliver possibly the most amazing songs that we've heard in Disney movie yet.
Indicative of the aural quality of the movie is the fact that the soundtrack stormed the charts and stayed on top for many months, Zimmer easily grabbed the oscar for best music while three out of the five nominated songs originated from the lion king(!)(with "can you feel the love tonight" winning eventually), and in the end, there was even a lion king musical that staged on Broadway, with massive success.
I could mention countless things more about the film. The parent-son main motife, the way it strayed away from the cliche love centrepiece other disney movies featured, the off beat and boldly surrealistic fanfare that "i cant wait to be a king" was,"The circle of life" scene, which is the peak of Disney as a whole for the last 50 years,the balance between spectacle, drama, and humour, the cells technology that was incorporated for the first time and changed the way cartoons were made....the list goes on..
Concluding, some times, great things happen in unexpected ocassions.
So it was, from a side project that started as a kind of animated documentary about african lions, handled by a so called "b-team" (as the more prestigious animators were working on the supposedly big film,"Pocahontas) inside Disney, that birth was given to the company's most elaborate creation, and till today, crowning achievement.
And for me, who saw the lion king at an early age and still can't help but errupt by that sunrise opening, every viewing becomes a celebration of an "experience" i had, a long time ago. Wonder how big fans my kids will make...
Long live the king then :)
Links.
The Lion King Special Edition official website
