I love that
The Last Unicorn is supposedly a children's movie.
Like, this is what children were expected to be able to handle back in our day. This emotionally dense, mature, melancholy, often heartbreaking story.
I remember when it all went to shit. I blame
The Smurfs. And
Spielberg and
Lucas of course. ********.
Also, how did I forget that this was an
all-star cast? I remember
Mia Farrow and
Alan Arkin, but
this cast?
Our titular Unicorn overhears from two hunters that she is the last of her kind and begins to consider this possibility. When she is doing unicorn shit in a meadow, a butterfly (played brilliantly by comedian/actor
Robert Klein) comes and frolics a bit with her but she interrogates him for information about any other unicorns. After much evasion he tells her that The Red Bull of King Haggard has run down all the unicorns in the world and she is the last. So she sets out on a journey to find them and rescue them. Along the way she meets a fascinating cast of characters, for real. Mommy Fortuna alone is worth the price of admission but, of course, the Harpy (not made for children of today or even children of the 90s or 00s, but for children of my time) and the Red Bull itself make for formidably frightening foes. And seriously, like 20 minutes into the movie we are dealing with complex human issues like insecurity and envy and greed and loneliness regret and complicated ethical questions, and this is just how the movie goes. We end up with a beautifully conceived character, Molly Grue, voiced by two-time
Tony-Winner Tammy Grimes, whose youth has passed her by and when she meets the unicorn she breaks down in anger and betrayal and deep sadness, crying out at the unicorn, "Damn you! Where were you when I was
young?!" It's a heart wrenching moment. Kids today couldn't handle this shit.
And then the unicorn meets The Red Bull.
She finds herself in over her head and defeated very quickly and, to save her, her friend Shmendrick the Magician turns her into a human. Which is apparently the worst thing you could do to a unicorn. And then a whole new set of complex emotional ideas is introduced from this conceit. Like I said, "dense". It's really pretty amazing.
A few notes I wanted to get to.
I like the score right away. So melancholy.
And my reaction to hearing The Song? "Holy shit. I’ve remembered this song my whole life. And, of course I did, it’s America. F*cking professionals." Though, even I can’t really listen to that song “In The Sea” or whatever it's called, that's a slight mis-step.
The voice-work here is really interesting and pretty fantastic. It's from another time and is not as smooth as the voice-work of today but that was the style back then. Here I think it works and really lends an otherworldly quality (as it did in The Hobbit earlier this month). But the actors themselves make it really amazing. Mommy Fortuna is awesome. But, oh, of course she is, she’s
Angela F*cking Lansbury and I'd forgotten. King Haggard? No problem, we'll just get
Christopher Lee to give a menacing and yet nuanced performance. “Christopher Lee was apparently a big fan of the book, and he showed up to the recording sessions with an annotated copy of the book that he had made notes in, that he would show to the director and be like, ‘We have to have this part. This part has to be in the scene,'” Gerencer says. “So he was all about this movie, apparently.” Bungling magician? How about
Alan Arkin? Need a hero? We'll just get
Jeff Bridges.
And at the center of it all is the ethereal Last Unicorn, who would need to be just right to give this all the emotional heft it needs... Hey, I hear
Mia Farrow's available. And she's perfect.
But the other voice-actors are just perfect as well. The voice of Gollum from
The Hobbit is in this, and I had called him out as a real highlight in that film too. Great job again. Talented guy. And with a callback to riddles. Pretty awesome. Jesus,
Keenan Wynn and
Tammy Grimes are great as Captain Cully and Molly Grue. Lord, the Molly Grue stuff (she's the one who is so emotionally tied to The Unicorn) is just fantastic. Heartbreaking.
Not totally sure I needed to hear Mia Farrow and Jeff Bridges sing, but I guess nobody ever said a masterpiece had to be perfect.
I knew this film was Rankin/Bass like
The Hobbit but it took me about 10 seconds to see that it's the same animation studio,
Topcraft (which had a number of people leave to form
Studio Ghibli)
Well, that's about all I have, I would direct you to this article from WIRED, entitled
"The Last Unicorn Is A Work Of Art".
And it is. I have no doubt about it. I would actually compare this more to something like
Son Of The White Mare than I would to most Western animated films.
This was a beautiful film and a wonderful experience.
Thanks to
Takoma for pressuring me. The truth is I've had it in the queue for years and never quite pulled the trigger because some part of me remembered how emotionally powerful it is and was never quite ready for it. Glad I just ripped off the band-aid and did it.