Week Five: A Little Princess

Year: 1995 

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Nostalgia Meter: 1.75/5

Most recent watch: Very long ago. 

A Little Princess is a movie that I remember, but just barely. I happened to stumble across it on Netflix, and thought it'd be fun to rewatch something that I don't have much nostalgia for at all. So, what did I remember about A Little Princess? Not much besides the plot being about a little girl and her dad and India (for some reason). While she's at a horrible boarding school, he goes to war and ends up blind. He forgets she exists, but somehow ends up remembering her and then they're reunited and happy. 

At the time when I last saw A Little Princess, my knowledge of WWI probably went as far as knowing that it was the one without Nazis. It is no longer so mysterious that Sara's father goes blind and forgets her. I guess as a kid I thought he just went blind from stress or something. I didn't understand that it was from being exposed to mustard gas. I also wasn't familiar with the concept of colonialism, so I had no idea why a British family would be living in India. So, yeah, this movie makes a lot more sense as an adult. Probably the biggest surprise while watching it was getting to the end credits and seeing, "Directed by Alfonso Cuarón." Overall though, it seems like a perfectly okay girls' movie, much more interesting visually than from a narrative standpoint. 

I really enjoyed the separate color schemes for things representing New York and things representing India, something that I never would have paid attention to as a kid. At the boarding school everything is green or grey-green, from the girls' uniforms to the school building itself. Even the scenes elsewhere in the city are predominately sad, cloudy, grey-green with maybe some pale browns here and there. India however, is full of light. Everything that's associated with India is brilliant orange, yellow, and white. It's a really cool thematic detail.

There's one scene in particular that also features the color black, and it is one of the most effective in the movie. When Miss Minchin shuts down Sara's birthday party to deliver the news that her father has died, Sara stares at a black balloon that's somehow broken away from the rest of the decorations. Sara watches the balloon while Minchin gets increasingly frustrated with her. When Minchin starts getting actually cruel with her words, the balloon pops suddenly, even though it's not touching anything. The loss of her father, and all of the belongings that he gave her, briefly shatters Sara's optimistic worldview. The black balloon is a poignant symbol of the traumatic event, and this is a moment in the film that stands out as particularly artistic.  

The real world color schemes also show up in the fanciful scenes of The Ramayana that Sara narrates for her friends. Rama and Kaikeyi's clothes are yellow and gold, while the evil Ravana's kingdom is an ugly dull green. These scenes are a lot of fun (well, apart from the mid-90s CGI), and if you look closely, you'll notice that Rama and Kaikeyi are the same actors who play Sara's parents. Though it would be easy to say that this is whitewashing the Indian epic, in this case, it seems appropriate because it's happening inside the imagination of a little girl who misses her parents very much and would of course cast them in the lead roles of her favorite story. And speaking of the actor who plays Captain Crewe, Liam Cunningham, you may be more familiar with him as Davos Seaworth from Game of Thrones. Personally, I've never seen him in anything else, but he's one of my favorite characters on that show, so it was fun seeing him here and about twenty years younger.

Besides the use of color, the other nice thing about the movie is that Sara seems like a pretty good role model. Almost annoyingly perfect, she's kind, smart, rich and pretty. However, she's kind and smart enough from the beginning that you don't end up resenting her for also being rich and pretty. Though Sara is wealthy and white, it doesn't even occur to her to look down on the school's black servant girl, Becky. Even though she's scolded for talking to Becky, Sara insists on meeting her and even giving her a gift of furred slippers. Sara is like this before she falls on hard times, and she keeps up her generosity after everything has been taken from her. There's a scene, shortly after Minchin has made her a servant, where Sara gives a cinnamon bun to beggar woman and her daughters. Even though she misses having nice things, she sees that the little family is even less fortunate than she is and she gives up the treat without expectation of anything in return. When the family thanks her by giving her one of the bright yellow roses they're selling, she spends her good fortune on someone else again, and leaves it at the door of the school's grieving neighbor, who has just lost his own son in the war. Sara's personality is wholesome, innocent, and pure of heart. She's everything a good kid is supposed to be.

As for the rest of the movie, it's not bad, but it definitely seems like a story a child would come up with. There's absolutely no reason for Miss Minchin to be as absurdly cruel as she is, even if she's jealous or resentful of Sara in some way. It just doesn't even make sense if she's primarily motivated by greed and a love of money. Her fate is equally silly, as one of the last scenes of the movie shows her working as a chimney sweep with a little boy, whining about when she should get a break. Perhaps the most childish notion of all is that four police officers would show up with a huge wagon just to arrest one little girl which is exactly what happens when Minchin accuses Sara of stealing back her mother's locket. The black-and-white nature of Minchin's evilness is the one thing that's holding this movie back from being truly outstanding.