Moana

omg so I have always been super into fairytales. I just read stories closely until I realised how full they can become when they are presented in animation. an tha is how I like them best. i like them for their feelings, and fictional places. I like big skies and oceans in cartoon reality. little creatures, bouquets of jewels, magic, castles in the sky; and I love the stubborn, wilful heroine that is often the axis of the story. You know when the protagonist has their moment of pure challenge; when they have to be brave enough to do the thing they are afraid to do - - - ah. my little cousin Ivy is 4, and i swear she gets narrative anxiety when the story reaches that moment. if she is watching something at home she just walks away from the TV and comes back when the day has been saved. i feel u, Ivy. except that moment now feels like growth i want to face.

fairytales in animation, in their soft fiction, affect me in a way I just can't get with live motion and pore-y real faces. i don’t want actors;;; i want the essentialism of storytelling that cartoon presents. they are like power ballads or pop songs. drive-thru art. strawberry yoghurt. easter eggs. Cartoons are ~ for children ~ but we should all be paying attention to their presence.

I went to see Moana on one of those nbd lets-go-see-a-film evenings when you don't really mind what the film is. you just wanna hang out with friends / family and going the cinema is a nice time. lool I was teary in minutes. At first it was just my eyes filling up because the image was so colourful and round, liquid and baby soft. leaves, coconuts, flowers, big eyes. But when the image grew up with the story, Moana became meaningful and I was just crying in the Odeon eating crips and thinking about love and the world and how I want a whole map of the world in my room, something to fill the wall. i wanna show Moana to my future daughter. i wanna show it now to my woc friends.

I don’t want to write about the content, and give spoilers/ I’m just here to talk about effect and form. bc Moana felt so Ghibli, like Princess Mononoke x Ponyo x Disney.

I went to Disneyland Paris last summer and when the parade began and all the characters came out into the street in full costume, twirling on swegways, and singing a repetitive, festive disney song, I felt adrenaline and emotion and I climbed onto a literal lamppost to see the movement. I am 22 lol. I think if I was 2 I would have just exploded into stars and died.

* Moana has this energy: disnefied in its songs, humour, and optimism, but it is wider - it is stoic like Ghibli in folklore and luminescence. In Moana, the gods lay down upon the world and become sleepy islands. The islands smile and wane. the story is warm and lovely like this even when it is uphill and lonely. a boat alone on the sea in the middle of the night. in Moana, the water can help you move

it is so good. and as I finish this review my sister is singing along to the Moana track in her bedroom, next to mine. she has dyed the ends of her hair pale pink and she keeps popping in to chat.

Go see it pls. it will make you feel like a sunflower in the actual sun