Director: Ron Clements
Year: 1992
Country: US
Language: English
Aladdin is about a street-urchin named Aladdin who lives in a large and busy town long ago with his faithful monkey friend Abu. When Princess Jasmine gets tired of being forced to remain in the palace that overlooks the city, she sneaks out to the marketplace, where she accidentally meets Aladdin. Under the orders of the evil Jafar (the sultan's advisor), Aladdin is thrown in jail and becomes caught up in Jafar's plot to rule the land with the aid of a mysterious lamp.
The first theory about this film is relatively simple. The film starts with a merchant roaming through the desert with a camel. He tries to sell the audience some pretty useless items and then tells us the story of Aladdin. The merchant and the genie in the film are essentially the same person. They wear the same clothes, have the same amount of fingers, the same facial hair and they are both voiced by Robin Williams. The merchant is essentially the genie after Aladdin freed him, though instead of telling the audience that the magical genie turned into a lonely merchant, he makes up the whole Disneyland bit.
The second theory is that Aladdin is set in a post-apocalyptic future, not in the past or present. The Genie has been in the lamp for 10,000 years yet he knows various impressions of stars from the 20th Century (Jack Nicholson, Groucho Marx). The Muslim religion in "Agrabah" or "Arabia" is almost non-existent. We don't see any mosques or prayer mats. Jasmine almost has her hand cut off for accidentally stealing food, this would make a lot of sense if food after the apocalypse was a rarity. Iago the talking parrot and the flying carpet are just left over technological innovations, which is likely why people aren't shocked by a talking parrot.
Even if one or all of these theories are nonsense, Aladdin is the perfect animated film to ponder about them. It's a magical, absurd tale that makes room for great oddity. Unfortunately it's a film that simplifies race and "americanizes" the Middle East which can appear to be quite racist. Indeed in the early nineties there were many religious affiliations that were outraged by this film, and I can't blame them.
In conclusion, Aladdin is a very imaginative film that brings out the best in film theorists' thoughts but it isn't mature enough to appeal to a wide range of audiences. There isn't much depth or meaning to the story (unlike Prince of Egypt) and it's offensive in its simplicity regarding race, religion and love. Watch it for entertainment or attempts to find meaning but if you want something meaningful, look elsewhere. 3/5
No comments:
Post a Comment