The Snow Queen () is a 2012 Russian animated fantasy adventure film directed by Vladlen Barbe and Maxim Sveshnikov. The film is a based on the 1844 fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen. Set after the Snow Queen invoked the spell of eternal winter, the film follows the story of Gerda who sets out on an improbable frigid journey up North to save her brother Kai.
The Snow Queen was one of the most anticipated projects of the Russian film industry in 2012. Inspirational evaluation of The Snow Queen at international film markets set its stage for international distribution. The film was released on 31 December 2012 in Russia. In the United States, it was released on 11 October 2013. After receiving generally positive reviews from critics, an Annecy International Animated Film Festival review noted the film's ambition is reminiscent of the golden age of Russian animation. The film also achieved significant commercial success, with the total box office amounting to $13.6 million, nearly doubling its $7 million budget. The film became a milestone in the history of Russian animation as it received accolades from Moscow Film Festival and Zelenograd International Youth Film Festival.
A sequel, The Snow Queen 2, was released in 2014.
Plot The Snow Queen covered the world in ice. Only Master Vegard stands in her way, whose mirrors reflect not only appearances but also souls. One day the polar wind takes away Vegard and his wife Una, but they hide their children Gerda and Kai. Years later, the Snow Queen's servile troll Orm (who can shape shift into a black weasel) locates Kai, who is deemed Vegard's successor, at the orphanage St. Peter's Kids Shelter. At the orphanage Gerda sews mittens. After a tangle between both siblings and Orm, Kai is abducted by the North Wind, a polar cold spell that can only be invoked by the Snow Queen. The polar vortex shuttles Kai to the Snow Queen's palace. Gerda embarks on a journey with Orm and her pet white weasel Luta across the icy lands to rescue her brother.
They first enter a garden dome run by an old lady who seems nice, but her true intentions are to drug and enslave Gerda to grow and sell flowers. Orm and Luta catch wind of the scheme and thwart it. The lady sends out her carnivorous plant, Ivy, but the trio make their escape. Meanwhile, in the ice palace, Kai arrives and the Snow Queen leads him to her throne room. The Queen's mirror, after examining Kai, reveals that Master Vegard has two heirs. Kai tries to hide the truth, but the Snow Queen reads it in his heart and sees Kai's painting of Gerda.
Gerda thanks Orm for saving her life and they begin to warm up to each other. Then the three stumble into Imana's caves, the birthplace of trolls. Orm briefs about how the trolls' age of peace was tainted by the Snow Queen and turned their clans to fight each other, until only the cowardly Orm survived, and the souls of the trolls remained trapped in Lake Gao. While Gerda and Luta look around, Orm is contacted by the Snow Queen with orders to bring Gerda to her. Orm helps Gerda and Luta cross the evil Lake Gao, and Gerda avoids its curse, much to Orm's amazement.
Outside the cave, the trio encounter a king on a royal hunt. The king tries to hunt Orm (in weasel form) and Luta, but he bumps into a tree. The trio are escorted to the king's castle. The king has had a trouble in which his children have literally half-shares in his property after the Snow Queen split the castle in half and Queen Anself was lost. The king takes Gerda as his prisoner, until she shows compassion for her brother. The king and his children have an argument and start a fire, but Gerda saves them. As a reward the trio are given a sleigh for their journey.
The trio are captured by pirates and taken to their ship, but Gerda is able to persuade them to let them continue their quest, and the captain's daughter gives them a reindeer for the journey. Meanwhile, in the Snow Queen's ice palace, Kai is frozen by the Snow Queen. Gerda meets the Lady of Lapland in a tent, who recounts the Snow Queen's origin. As a girl, Irma, who had a gift of magic, was ostracized and went to Imana's caves where her ill wish upon the people, granted by the Lake Gao, turned her into the Snow Queen. The Lady of Lapland grants the trio a snow boat and sends them to the Snow Queen. The palace of the Snow Queen is located in Spitsbergen.
Orm tries to protect Gerda and make her change her mind, but Gerda is dead set on saving her brother. At the Kingdom of Eternal Frost, Gerda finds her brother frozen. Then the Snow Queen appears. Orm turns down his reward to be free and beseeches the queen to spare Gerda. Since the queen will not listen to reason, Orm ceases to serve her. The Queen summons ice trolls and giants, but Orm transforms into a polar bear to defeat the monsters and allow Gerda to reach the throne room. Both Orm and Luta are cornered by the North Wind.
Gerda finds the queen's mirror and walks through it, entering the mirror realm. The Snow Queen tries to freeze her heart but, guided by the spirits of her family, she regains hope and retaliates with the magic mirror. The Snow Queen's curse is finally broken, Irma is transformed back and Gerda banishes the evil curse from returning. Irma revives Kai, Orm turns back into a troll, Luta wakes him up and the eternal winter is finally ended. With that Gerda, Kai, Orm, Irma and Luta all set off home. Gerda and Orm finally accept each other as best friends.
During the end credits, there are scenes showing the lives of people they met throughout their journey after the Snow Queen's defeat and started living happily.
Cast CharacterRussian voiceEnglish voice Description Gerda Nyusha Jessica Straus The main heroine from The Snow Queen. She's a brave, kind and honest girl with a strong will.Growing up in an orphanage, she is always quick to embark on any adventure and has a warm perceptive heart. Orm / TrollIvan OkhlobystinDoug ErholtzOrm is a very ordinary troll. Despite not seen at "troll" standards, Orm's strengths are not physical.His true merits lie elsewhere, namely in cunning and savviness. Snow Queen Galina Tyunina Cindy Robinson The ruler of an icy palace in the Laplands.The Queen has the power to invoke polar winds that turn the lands into a winter land. Kai Ramilya Iskander Marin Miller Gerda's brother. A dreamer, artist and poet. He is willing to help alongside Alfida and Gerda.Kai is the only one remaining in the world with artisan knowledge of Master Vegard's soul mirror. Luta Erin Fitzgerald Luta is a white ferret. She is Orm's true friend conscience and most agile character.She will risk her life for Orm at a moment's notice, but is also quick to point at all of wrongdoings.Luta always wins in arguments with Orm.Daughter (Alfida)Liza ArzamasovaWendee LeeA true pirate. Alfida is strong, authoritative, and determined-but she has a kind heart, and an acute sense of justice. Shopkeeper Olga Shorokhova Flower Lady Lyudmila Artemyeva Lapp WomanAnna ArdovaHousemasterDmitry NagiyevKirk Thornton Una Olga Zubkova Erin Fitzgerald Princess PrinceMikhail Tikhonov Christopher Corey Smith Master Vegard A mirror craftsman who can construct mirrors that reflect souls. Vegard is the father of Kai and Gerda.
Other English dub voices: Doug Erholtz as King, Robbers Kirk Thornton as Servant, Red Head, Robbers Cindy Robinson as Robber Hag Erin Fitzgerald as Mirror, Lake Gao Christopher Corey Smith as Robbers
Concept
Early history The Danish author Hans Andersen's collection of fairy tales compiled first in Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection. First Booklet (1838) has had tremendous influence on Russian culture that spans over two centuries. Russia already had its own Snow Maiden or Snegurochka that is similar to the character the Snow Queen in Andersen's fairy tale. Snegurochka is depicted as the helper to Ded Moroz, the legendary holiday gift-bringer. Today, Andersen's plots are being transmitted into new media such animation, live-action films, computer games and digital spaces.
Critics such as InterMedia have found Andersen's tales befitting in the cultural landscape of Russia because of its "archetypal proximity of the fairy tale of Andersen to the Russian mentality." The eponymous character the Snow Queen was written by Andersen as a ruler of the Laplands that includes the northern regions of Scandinavia, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia.
The fairy tales was interpreted into Russian for the first time by writers and poets Innokentij Annenski, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Boris Pasternak. In 1894, two St. Petersburg publishing houses, almost simultaneously, published Andersen's collected works in new high-quality translations. The first was Illustrated Fairy Tales: The Complete Collection in Six Volumes translated by B. D. Porozovskaya (publishing house F. Pavlenkov) and the four-volume Collected Works translated by A. and P. Hansen (typolithography of S. M. Nikolaev). Hans Christian Andersen writings later influenced the works of Russian authors Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. By the turn of the twentieth century, interest in Scandinavian literature from Sweden, Norway and especially Denmark became part of the cultural interaction of Russia.
In the Soviet Union era, Anna and Peter Hansen's translated version was the most popular, albeit edited and refined to fit the commissar's guidelines that gave a new interpretation to The Snow Queen. The period after the revolution and into the Soviet Union is considered the moment when Andersen become part of the Russian cultural space. Andersen became "our foreign author", as the fairy tales were influential in inspiring playwright Evgeny Schwartz to stage children's play The Snow Queen in 1938. The stage play premiered in Slovakia theaters in 1989. A 1967 live action Russian film The Snow Queen and a 1986 Moscow Studio Ekran musical The Secret of the Snow Queen also was released.
Recent history By the second half of the twentieth century the cinematograph began adapting individual stories from Andersen's canon. One of the adaptations was the animated Soyuzmultfilm film The Snow Queen in 1957. In dedication to the 200th anniversary of Hans Christian Andersen during March 2005 at the Maly Theater of Russia, Mr. Lars Vissing, the CEO of the Andersen Foundation noted Hans Christian is very well known in Russia and the attitude towards him is "passionate."
Initially, InlayFilm had at first plans to adapt Peter Pan. However, producers of the project Sergey Rapoport states, "We took this step consciously", reminding themselves The Snow Queen by Andersen is a well known fairy tale by the audiences of Russia and Europe. Inspired by the classic 1957 film as well as the fairy tale, Wizart Animation undertook a new animated version with a completely different animation style. They viewed the fairy tale with the same integrity as Shakespeare's Hamlet and was eager to extrapolate the story line by Andersen to depict previously unrecorded characters.
However, the studio faithfully followed the source material. The characters of the film - the Lapp woman, little robber girl, the prince, and the princess are all derived from Hans Christian Andersen's story. They used 3D stereoscopy animation to revive the fairy tale eventually exhibiting the film, The Snow Queen. The atmosphere of this Snow Queen film is decidedly more comical and was targeted for the family audience. The film was produced at the Voronezh animation studio in 3D for $7 million with over 1,000 special effects. "We have been working at it for three years. The story is classic, although there are new heroes", Dmitry Kchrustaliov reported.
Production
Development