The Snowman

The animated film The Snowman is a charming, whimsical, kid friendly adaption of Raymond Brigg’s classic picture book. The film deals with friendship, fantasy, Christmas, reality and treasure. In the former part of the film, it portrays a boy’s nocturnal adventures with the snowman he built. Easiness, harmony and happiness suffuse the whole frames. The boy and the snowman creep and frolic in the house; they venture outside and ride on a motorbike; they take flight over the land and reach the Arctic Circle and meet Santa. All of those are children’s dreams which are fulfilled in the film. Undoubtedly, it brings hope and joyfulness to audience. However, in the latter part, the boy wakes up in the next morning but to find the snowman has melted and he really mourns the loss of his new friend. When he reaches into his pocket he finds out that the scarf given to him by Santa is still there. The ending is sad but nice, clean and silent. It introduces children to the concept of mortality which is natural and inevitable. The snowman melts, people pass away, and the plants wither, there’s nothing gloomy about it, it’s a fact of life. The director presents it in a positive and acceptable way. At first I’m confused about why the boy can still find the scarf. The snowman can never be alive, it’d better be a dream so that people can easily understand and be convinced. But then I realized, it’s the charm and attraction of animations. They can be naïve, whimsical and unrealistic; they’re filled with children’s dreams, but they can’t avoid death, which reemphasize the point at the end of the film. We should cherish what we own right now and treasure them well. The background music is also very pivotal, contagious and profound. The film is wordless, without any dialogues. The frames tell us clearly what’s going on and the dialogues can be variously made by different people. However, the background music “Walking in the Sky” sung by a boy has lyrics for the first time.