Tag: Horses

Alice in Wonderland. Dir. Tim Burton. Walt Disney Pictures. 2010.

The film draws on the viewer’s knowledge of the Disney original in the tea party scene, making it a ruin of what it once was, and presenting the Hatter as even more ‘mad’. He is seen for the first time in a close up shot, slowly looking up towards the camera, vacantly staring into the…

12th December 2018
28 Days Later. Dir. Danny Boyle. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2002.

You wouldn’t expect one of British cinema’s most poignant and idyllic moments to lie in the centre of a post-apocalyptic horror film, yet it does. Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later cuts in the melancholy scene at its centre, with four wild horses providing respite for the film’s central four characters by subverting the film’s primary genre…

12th December 2018
The Wizard of Oz. Dir. Victor Fleming, King Vidor, George Cukor, Richard Thorpe, Norman Taurog. MGM. 1939.

The Wizard of Oz showcases, through its many varying forms of animal representation, the ways in which filmmakers deal with the challenge of creating animal characters, and how these different methods are used to craft personality traits such as the moral essence of the character. We can see this with regards to the flying monkeys, particularly…

12th December 2018
Cinderella. Dir. Sir Kenneth Branagh . Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2015.

During Ella’s journey from a happy, sweet child, to the mourning servant of her stepfamily, to cherished wife of the King, her fundamental characteristics are consistent. Her mother tells her to ‘have courage and be kind’. The message is not subtle: this exact phrase is repeated another 9 times in the film. For the sceptics…

12th December 2018
Hannah Montana: The Movie. Dir. Peter Chelsom. Walt Disney Pictures. 2009.

Hannah Montana: The Movie is about Miley Stewart, a secret pop sensation known as Hannah Montana, getting caught up in the perks of her famous life. Her fed-up father, Robby Ray, forces Miley to visit her family on her hometown farm in Crowley Corners, Tennessee. Robby Ray threatens to take away Hannah Montana forever if Miley…

2nd June 2018
The Fox and the Child. Dir. Luc Jacquet. Pathé. 2007.

Luc Jacquet’s The Fox and the Child depicts an unnamed girl (Bertille Noël-Bruneau) exploring the French countryside and following its animal inhabitants. She develops an obsession with the titular fox and it becomes more trusting, but the girl disastrously oversteps the boundary and attempts to make the wild animal her pet. The film is interested in binaries…

29th May 2018
The Fox and the Child. Dir. Luc Jacquet. Pathé. 2007.

When asked in an interview how he approached making The Fox and the Child (2007) following the popularity of The March of the Penguins (2005), French director Luc Jacquet replied: I went into my childhood; into a memory I have of having looked into the eyes of a wild fox when I was a kid. I also noticed that…

21st May 2018
Mulan. Dir. Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook. Buena Vista Pictures. 1998.

Disney’s Mulan (1998) takes on a Chinese folktale of a woman who takes the place of her father in the fight against the Huns who have recently invaded China. The film follows the adventures and troubles of Mulan, a young woman who breaks the stereotypes of Disney’s classic princess, as well as the expectations which…

21st May 2018
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Dir. David Yates. Warner Bros. Pictures. 2007.

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Harry contends with his isolation as a result of the ministry of magic, and a large portion of his fellow students, believing him to be lying about his experiences at the end of his last school year. These experiences include the return of the dark wizard, Voldemort,…

21st May 2018
The Shape of Water. Dir. Guillermo Del Toro. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2017.

The Shape of Water is a fantastical love story set during The Cold War about Eliza, a mute cleaner at a government laboratory, who falls in love with a hybrid amphibian-man who was captured from the Amazon by the film’s villain, Colonel Strickland. General Hoyt wishes to exploit the amphibian-man to Western advantage in the Space…

20th May 2018