Rediscovering an old favorite
Perusing my DVD collection looking for movies to fill my iPod, I came across one of the few non-Pixar Disney movies I've enjoyed enough that it still held up on my viewing it as an adult, and merited me rushing out on DVD to own.
Growing up, Sleeping Beauty was my favorite Disney, and it's still easy to see why.
While I've enjoyed a few of the other animated Disneys - Beauty and the Beast most notably - when you look at Sleeping Beauty, it's not a stretch at all to say that movies simply aren't animated like this anymore. Hell, they weren't done like that back when it was made, either. The backgrounds are painstakingly, richly detailed beyond the scope of any Disney film before or since: I read that the typical time spent painting a background on other Disney films of that period was something like a day, but with SB, it was closer to seven to ten days for each one. If there's any Disney/animated film I'd want to see on a digital screen, it'd be this - it'd be an utter feast for both the eyes and ears. The forest and castle sequences are particularly gorgeous; it's like the characters are walking through a living painting (which was apparently the effect Walt was aiming for). The angular, stylized design of the animation also lends to a more medieval, truly fairytale look/feel. The overall tone of the film as a whole is certainly darker - as true fairy tales should be - than any other Disney film I can recall, especially in the scenes at Maleficent's fortress and the final battle, and a clearly hypnotized Aurora being lured up into the tower is one of the most truly creepy moments in a Disney film. The combined effect of the music, the darkness only faintly illuminated by that ghostly green light, and that equally ghostly "Aurora..." My skin crawls every time. (Maleficent herself remains at the top of my Disney villain list both in character and design: she herself is beautiful in a cold, almost reptilian way, and the voice acting projects the perfect combination of refined elegance and utter evil.)
The second major aspect that makes Sleeping Beauty stand out for me is, of course, the music, adapted from Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty Ballet" - at turns majestic, whimsical, romantic, sinister/malevolent, and always epically beautiful. It's thanks to this movie that I sought out and eventually bought the Tchaikovsky score, which I've spent hours on end listening to. To my non-classically-trained ears, the re-arrangement of the score for the film is well-done, seamlessly incorporating many of the ballet's more recognizable pieces. If one had never heard the ballet, it wouldn't be hard to believe the music was specifically composed for the scenes they're used for in the movie. The house-cleaning, the theme used for Maleficent, the fairies' rush to the cottage to find Phillip, the arrival at the Forbidden Mountain, Maleficent's "fairy tale come true" taunting of Phillip, Phillip's entire escape from and battle with Maleficent - I could go on - the melding of scene to score is pitch-perfect. (In fact, in the case of the Maleficent theme, I prefer its use/arrangement in the film to that of the ballet, especially when she's luring Aurora into the tower.)
The main weakness of the film comes in the relatively flat personalities of the titular character and her marginally-less-bland prince - perhaps not surprising when you realize they only have speaking parts for about 15 minutes of the whole thing. (In fact, neither Phillip nor Aurora speak a single word in the entire second half, which when I noticed it struck me as an odd storytelling choice, if in fact it was a conscious one. Well, at least Aurora has an excuse for much of her quiet time.) I've no problem believing in love at first sight, especially for the purposes of a fairy tale story, but something about their meeting still fails to capture that resonance. I will grant it's a nice reversal of the original tale to have the prince/princess in love before she falls under the spell, and to make the prince do more to save the day than just show up and lay one on her. In any case, the "eh" romance isn't a deal breaker, because the music and animation of their meeting is just beautiful - especially the wide shot of them dancing at the side of the lake - and Aurora and Phillip are really secondary characters, the much more lively Good Fairies and Maleficent taking up the lion's share of screentime.
If I were to nitpick, I'd also add that it's silly that the fairies didn't wait until after sunset on Aurora's 16th birthday to bring her back to her parents, and that Maleficent only seemed to check once in 16 years on the progress of finding her intended victim, but then I suppose if those hadn't happened, the film would've been much shorter. ;)
Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast are solidly at the top of my very short list of favorite animated Disneys, probably tied. (For the record, Aladdin, The Lion King, and to a partial extent The Little Mermaid round out that list. Mulan I haven't seen enough of to fairly judge.) BatB has a better love story, more fleshed out heroine (books > guys FTW!), and more singable songs, but in terms of sheer gorgeousness (visual and aural), SB is hands-down the winner.
And on a final note: Blue > Pink. ;)