ANASTASIA

Twentieth Century Fox successfully moved in on traditional Walt Disney territory with Anastasia, creating its first full length animated feature complete with cute button noses, big blue eyes and a mushy, hope-inspiring soundtrack to match. The result is a very entertaining feature even though it insists on a lop-sided version of history, depicting the royal rule of the Russian Czars as a time of peace and prosperity, and the rule of the communists as a doomed and desperate venture.

Apart from such overtly capitalist overtures, the film is quite charming, based on the real life mystery of Princess Anastasia who disappeared at the time of the Russian revolution and was never found. In the Fox version, Anastasia and her grandmother plan to run away on a train to Paris, but in the confusion Anastasia gets left behind. All she has with her is the key to a music box which her grandmother had given her. By the time she grows up into a young lady in a Russian orphanage, the princess has forgotten who she is. Meanwhile her grandmother, living in Paris, has announced a reward for whoever returns the lost child.

Dimitri, a young con-man, along with Vladimir, an ex-nobleman from the Russian royal court of the past, comes across Anastasia and realises she has an amazing likeness to the lost princess. They decide to take her to Paris, pass her off as the princess, and claim the reward. The journey to Paris sees Anastasia trying to learn royal etiquette from Vladimir, while the love-hate relationship between her and Dimitri slowly turns to love. When Dimitri finally realises that Anastasia is really the princess, he is devastated, knowing that their love can never be fulfilled. Lurking in the background is Rasputin the evil sorcerer, who tries his best to ruin the last surviving members of the royal Romanov family.

Of course, the dialogues are fairly predictable if one is familiar with this genre, while there are plenty of the obligatory cute-isms. But the animation is a visual treat, and with Meg Ryan lending her voice to the perky Anastasia, and Christopher Lloyd (the eccentric Doc of Back to the Future) mouthing the flamboyant lines of Rasputin, this film is good viewing for all lovers of musical animation.

Len Simon: Making a Rasputin
Anastasia is the first animated feature to come out of the new Fox Animation Studios in Phoenix, Arizona. “We have wall-to-wall stars,” is how Canadian animator Len Simon describes it. “About Anastasia,” he says, “they wanted to go over the edge with this one and do something really phenomenal.”

Anastasia, a musical feature, brings together Canadian animator and Hollywood star-power. Co-creators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman managed to round up the likes of Meg Ryan, who is the voice for Anastasia herself, Jon Cussack (Con Air), Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future), Angela Lansbury (Murder, She Wrote), and Kelsey Grammer (Frasier), among others, to breathe life into the cartoon characters.

The dynamic animating duo of Bluth and Goldman have to their credit such big-screen hits as The Secret of Nimh and All Dogs Go to Heaven. Working on Anastasia, at the new Phoenix studio, they’ve assembled a talented team of artists and technicians, many of whom are Canadian.

Len Simon, one of the directing animators on Anastasia, comments on the Canadian factor when he says, “Nearly, every department has Canadians.” Most of the directing animators were Canadian, the head of layout, the head of background and some of the top guys in the computer department.

Len Simon started working with Don Bluth in the fall of 1989, after completing a summer course in animation at Oakville’s famed Sheridan College, Ontario, Canada. According to Simon, he was at the right place at the right time. Don Bluth recruited Sheridan’s top 12 students to work on the animated feature Rock-a-Doodle, to be filmed in Ireland, and Simon was one of them. He landed in Ireland just after his 19th birthday and stayed there for five years. From Ireland, he moved to Phoenix, where he’s been ever since. “I’ll stick to Don (Bluth) through thick and thin,” says Simon. “He’s someone I look up to, he’s a genius.”

Simon was responsible for the key character of Rasputin in Anastasia, voiced by Christopher Lloyd. According to Simon, Rasputin looks like a cross between the actual Rasputin and Christopher Lloyd himself. “I’d watch a lot of Back to the Futures and anything else he was in and try to get his presence,” explains Simon.

Of Rasputin, Simon says, “Rasputin’s a ghost for most of the film, so you can have more fun with him. You don’t have to stick to the ‘human’ rules, you can do a little more ‘squash and stretch’ on him.

“We have him sort of falling apart,” continues Simon, “When Bartok (Rasputin’s sidekick, an albino bat) meets him, Rasputin is in limbo, and as he’s talking, his eyeball falls out and his mouth is falling off. During the scene In the Dark of the Night’, he falls right apart.”

You may have noticed that a certain amount of artistic licence was taken with the character of Rasputin. For one thing, the legendary Russian mystic is portrayed here as an out-and-out evil sorcerer. Furthermore, Rasputin is credited with causing the Russian revolution by casting a deadly curse on the entire Romonov family.

When Rasputin’s curse comes true and an angry mob storms the royal palace, the young princess escapes only to turn up in Paris, 10 years later with no memory of her true identity. Dimitri (Cussack, a con artist, manages to persuade Anya, as she calls herself, to impersonate the lost princess for the reward money.

Bluth and his team went to great lengths to convince Meg Ryan to voice the role of Anastasia. “We took a line from Sleepless in Seattle and some other dialogue for the other characters and animated three scenes together,” explains Simon. “Her response was great. She loved it.”

Cajoling and convincing has worked wonders for Anastasia, cause the end product is being happily viewed all over the world.