What is more than forty years old, covered in frost and never goes out of date?
The answer is so sparklingly obvious that I am obliged to spell it out. It is, of course, that incomparable animated short,
The Snowman, based on the illustrations of Ray Briggs. I have just watched it for the umpteenth time and in all my viewings, it has never lost any of its charm. Though I was far from a child when it was first broadcast (1982), I always think of it as a childhood movie. This, because it was created to appeal to the eternal child that resides inside all of us, the part that continues to believe in magic, long after we have received the front-door keys. When pressed to define its appeal exactly (aside from the above), I can only reply thus.
In the movie, the Snowman barges into the well-heated human world and exercises his naivety in several enchanting ways, his child-like delight in seeing his miniature image on the frosted Christmas cake, his fascination with adult clothes, cosmetics and frozen food. I love the way that Snowman rides willy-nilly into the forest only
after young James has shown him how to operate the motorbike. This is in contrast to the later, more knowing Snowman – he of the snow dog – who pilots a plane without turning a flake – guh?
But most of all, I love the luscious pastel world, created in pencil strokes, that the characters inhabit. The jerky camera movement (never equalled in these CGI times) gives the viewer the sensation of motion in those astonishing flying sequences with Snowman and James, gliding across the sea and around land formations, through ravines, valleys and into the forest where the gathering of snowmen celebrate, well, being snowmen. And no matter how often I watch, I never fail to hope that the sad ending changes to one where Snowman survives. But of course...this ending sums perfectly that flat, post-Christmas feeling, when the sparkle that tinged our lives for a short while has faded for another year. Whoever you are, whatever you do, a very merry Christmas to you.
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