Leave it to Disney to take a scene of two dogs sharing a plate of spaghetti and turn it into one of the most iconic romantic moments in film history. It's all the more interesting considering that Lady and the Tramp doesn't really focus on the romance at its core; rather, it's more concerned with examining the life of its canine protagonist, and how the arrival of a baby complicates the master/pet relationship.
The issue with films that personify animals is, of course, that one has to write around the fact that actual animals don't have human emotions; as a result, any story running with the concept has to be at least somewhat divorced from reality. This might be why the film, which keeps its action largely at the dogs' level, spends a lot of time in the first half trying to make the audience feel sorry for animals in situations that, in real life, we would barely pay attention to (one could say the same about Toy Story's overall attitude toward toys, but at least Toy Story manages to be compelling enough for the audience to ignore it). As a result, it occasionally comes off as emotionally manipulating the audience. As for the romance between the titular Lady and Tramp... like most Disney romances, it's less than perfectly presented. The buildup is there, and it's fairly well-executed, but then there's the falling apart (when Lady learns that the Tramp is a womanizer with a long history), then the climax (easily the best parts of the film, laden with evocative, atmospheric lighting as the Tramp fights the terrifyingly drawn rat), and then... they're in love again! And they're having puppies! It's ultimately a bit too clean of a wrap-up to the relationship that really should be taking center stage.
The film does manage to succeed better on some ends. The voice acting is one of the strongest elements, with the dogs' voices and accents perfectly matching their breed and personality (the best is probably Bill Thompson as Jock, easily the film's most appealing character). The dogs are charmingly drawn for the most part, managing to be identifiable breeds while still retaining enough animated expressiveness. Not fairing as well are the two Siamese cats, with their cringingly broken-English voices, or Aunt Sara, fulfilling the kid-movie stock character role of the authority figure who punishes the protagonist while remaining blindly oblivious to legitimate problem-creators (and who apparently has never realized that her animals are a pair of domestic nightmares from Hell).
Interestingly, Lady and the Tramp manages to have some genuinely dark moments. The fights are appropriately visceral, the climax is legitimately tense, and the scenes in the pound are some of Disney's darkest, acknowledging the bleak existence of stray dogs and even daring to bring up the specter of euthanasia (albeit briefly, and never mentioned again). It's enough to make one wonder what kind of film Disney could have made had they capitalized on the grimmer material and made a more straight-faced look at the life of dogs. As it is, Lady and the Tramp still has a bit too much fluff, and not enough focus on the romance that should be at the core of the plot.
No comments:
Post a Comment