![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
“We never got this much done during lockdown,” I commented wistfully to Julie, as we watched Rapunzel paint her walls, bake cakes, make a dress, dip candles, and otherwise gainfully occupy her time as she sweeps around her tower while singing “When Will My Life Begin.”
I just really enjoy this movie. On a purely visual level, it’s just so beautiful. Rapunzel’s tower looks so wonderfully cozy (this is of course an ironic coziness, but still), very cottagecore, all cluttered and sunlit and bucolic. And the sequence with the floating lights is so stunning. Not just the lights themselves but the whole run up to it, Rapunzel’s wonderful festival day beforehand (those four little girls braiding up her hair off the ground!), the dancing, and then the crowds in the streets as night falls, the king and queen releasing their lanterns, and all down the streets the people lighting their own lanterns and releasing them into the sky and their soft glowing lights reflect in the water…
And I love Rapunzel; she’s so bright and bouncy and creative and so brave. The scene when she’s got Flynn tied to the chair with her own hair, and she’s threatening him with a frying pan, and she’s trying to sound so tough, and you can just hear that terrified little wobble in her voice! She’s never seen another soul besides Mother Gothel, she’s been raised on stories about the depredations of outsiders, but nonetheless she will confront this intruder and figure out why he’s here and try to turn this turn of events to her own ends.
The film does such a skillful job establishing Rapunzel’s relationship with Mother Gothel. Mother Gothel is doing her darndest to make Rapunzel feel too frightened and incompetent to ever run away - but she always pairs her put-downs with “I love you”s, so while Rapunzel feels suffocated she also struggles to articulate to herself just how much she wants to run away, because to her that suffocation is indelibly linked to love.
Hence her mixed feelings when she finally does get out. She’s SO excited, she’s rolling down the hill yelling “This is the most fun I’ve ever had!” - but then in the next moment she’s weeping on the grass that it would break Mother’s heart if she ever found out.
Flynn tries to manipulate these feelings to his own ends, but in comparison to Mother Gothel he’s a complete amateur, doesn’t manage to make Rapunzel do anything he wants, and soon gives up trying because he realizes that she’s the bee's knees and all he really wants anymore is to be with her forever.
But of course Mother Gothel, who IS a master class at manipulation, finds a way to twist this against Rapunzel: of course he’s not really into you (with a scoff: who could be into you?), he’s just stringing you along to get that tiara, give it to him and then you’ll see… and then she arranges it so that he does disappear as soon as Rapunzel gives him the tiara. What better way to bind Rapunzel for her forever?
Mother Gothel is one of the scariest Disney villains because she is so realistic on an emotional level, and so insidious. She's the relative or or romantic partner or friend who claims to love you so much, and have your best interests at heart; who tells you (for your own good, of course! in order to protect you from the cold hard cruel world out there) that you’re incompetent and unlovable and will never amount to much, and therefore had better stick with them forever.
I just really enjoy this movie. On a purely visual level, it’s just so beautiful. Rapunzel’s tower looks so wonderfully cozy (this is of course an ironic coziness, but still), very cottagecore, all cluttered and sunlit and bucolic. And the sequence with the floating lights is so stunning. Not just the lights themselves but the whole run up to it, Rapunzel’s wonderful festival day beforehand (those four little girls braiding up her hair off the ground!), the dancing, and then the crowds in the streets as night falls, the king and queen releasing their lanterns, and all down the streets the people lighting their own lanterns and releasing them into the sky and their soft glowing lights reflect in the water…
And I love Rapunzel; she’s so bright and bouncy and creative and so brave. The scene when she’s got Flynn tied to the chair with her own hair, and she’s threatening him with a frying pan, and she’s trying to sound so tough, and you can just hear that terrified little wobble in her voice! She’s never seen another soul besides Mother Gothel, she’s been raised on stories about the depredations of outsiders, but nonetheless she will confront this intruder and figure out why he’s here and try to turn this turn of events to her own ends.
The film does such a skillful job establishing Rapunzel’s relationship with Mother Gothel. Mother Gothel is doing her darndest to make Rapunzel feel too frightened and incompetent to ever run away - but she always pairs her put-downs with “I love you”s, so while Rapunzel feels suffocated she also struggles to articulate to herself just how much she wants to run away, because to her that suffocation is indelibly linked to love.
Hence her mixed feelings when she finally does get out. She’s SO excited, she’s rolling down the hill yelling “This is the most fun I’ve ever had!” - but then in the next moment she’s weeping on the grass that it would break Mother’s heart if she ever found out.
Flynn tries to manipulate these feelings to his own ends, but in comparison to Mother Gothel he’s a complete amateur, doesn’t manage to make Rapunzel do anything he wants, and soon gives up trying because he realizes that she’s the bee's knees and all he really wants anymore is to be with her forever.
But of course Mother Gothel, who IS a master class at manipulation, finds a way to twist this against Rapunzel: of course he’s not really into you (with a scoff: who could be into you?), he’s just stringing you along to get that tiara, give it to him and then you’ll see… and then she arranges it so that he does disappear as soon as Rapunzel gives him the tiara. What better way to bind Rapunzel for her forever?
Mother Gothel is one of the scariest Disney villains because she is so realistic on an emotional level, and so insidious. She's the relative or or romantic partner or friend who claims to love you so much, and have your best interests at heart; who tells you (for your own good, of course! in order to protect you from the cold hard cruel world out there) that you’re incompetent and unlovable and will never amount to much, and therefore had better stick with them forever.
