Once Upon A Forest
20 St Georges Road, Avondale, Auckland
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1993 / 68 min / G
Director: Charles Grosvenor
Cast: Michael Crawford, Ben Vereen, Ellen Blain
"Once Upon a Forest" a beautiful underrated movie about three young critters - a wood mouse, a hedgehog and a mole - who have a series of adventures as they travel together on a quest.
They are in search of an herb that will heal a friend of theirs who has become deathly ill after a man-made accident - a tanker-truck has overturned and leaked a lethal gas, which is spreading throughout the forest.
Their teacher and mentor, an older badger who represents a sort of grandfatherly figure (voiced by Phantom of the Opera himself Michael Crawford!), has sent them on this quest, and the adventures they meet along the way range from comical to scary to musical (Ben Vereen voices a choir-conducting, gospel-shouting preacher in one amusing, toe-tapping segment).
In some ways, "Once Upon a Forest" is remarkably old-fashioned, despite a few nods to contemporary thinking. But that's not meant as criticism. On its own terms, the fairy tale sensibility works perfectly in context - and the film is most enjoyable for children and their parents.
Once Upon a Forest is superior to most of the environmentally themed works being made around the same time – far less preachy and far more unobtrusive in its message-making.
Most of all, it is a gentle nicely-made animated film. The characters are drawn with a clean simplicity and beautifully soft and innocent emotions. One image of Edgar the hedgehog tripping and losing his glasses, terrifyingly being caught in a trap by giant, white-coated scientists and then freed with a “There you go little fella” in reversal of expectation has a tender beauty.
James Horner conducts a beautiful soundtrack and Michael Crawford sings the tearjerking ballad "Please Wake Up”, so please bring hankies!
Hard to find in any format we are proud to present a beautiful extremely rare 35mm print- come early and watch some classic cartoon shorts - 20 mins before feature starts.
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