Subject: RETROSPECTIVE: THE LAST UNICORN (1982)

From: [email-masked] (Shane R. Burridge)
Date: 8 Jul 1996 21:05:47 GMT

THE LAST UNICORN
                       A film review by Shane R. Burridge
                        Copyright 1996 Shane R. Burridge

(1982) 94m. 

Thoughtful animated fantasy may be too wordy for some children but
should appeal to kids who read.  It's a little slow at the start but
worth sticking with.  The last unicorn of the title (voiced by Mia
Farrow) is searching for others of her kind.  She believes the answer
lies in a rundown castle near the sea.  This is the standard `quest'
material that most fantasy is made of, but in this case heroics and
spectacle are secondary to drama, which may explain the presence of
big names in the cast.  Alan Arkin, Jeff Bridges (who would play an
animated character of a different kind the same year in TRON),
Christopher Lee, Tammy Grimes, Angela Lansbury, Keenan Wynn, and
Robert Klein all voice characters that have a passing resemblance to
their real selves.  The animation, produced in Japan, isn't on a par
with Disney, and the female characters have those irritating oversized
eyes that are symptomatic of anime figures, but it holds up.  Story
has many original touches and deals with love, regret, myth versus
reality, and it's major theme, the subjectivity of truth.  Unlike most
animated films, this one doesn't throw in slapstick or comedy relief
(although Arkin has some light moments). Every character bears some
form of loss - unconsciously they join the unicorn on quests of their
own to look beyond illusion and archetype.  Not all of them find what
they're looking for.  Film doesn't handle these ideas in an
exclusively adult way (it still comes across as a children's cartoon),
and makes pleasant family viewing.  I can imagine it being watched at
home by mothers and their daughters during school holidays. Peter S.
Beagle adapted his own novel for the screen - he was also responsible
for the difficult task of adapting THE LORD OF THE RINGS for Ralph
Bakshi a few years earlier.  Pop group America perform Jimmy Webb's
songs and help add to the story's wistful mood.   Directed by the team
of Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr who had previously worked together
for ten years producing animated features for television.