"So...serious."...-The only Disney cartoon feature that gives me a melancholy feeling

Rating: 8/10 (11 September 2007)

This past Sunday I saw 'Pocahontas' again on video (yes people, I still do not have the DVD) after many years. For some time I've just avoided this movie. The renewed acquaintance brought out the same melancholy feelings as 12 years ago when I saw it in the cinema the first time. I've always been a sucker for Disney animation and this remained so as I grew up. I was exited about the 'second flowering' of Disney that began with "Little Mermaid" and I really looked forward to Pocahontas at the time. Looked to me that Disney were exploring new grounds again.
But in 1995 I was of the verge of a depression and seeing "Pocahontas'worked as a trigger for that. Mind: I liked the heroine, the animation, the music and -what I felt- the chemistry between the leads. But it was also a heavy-handed, toxic-serious-content movie, and did not at all give me that uplifting feeling that Disney cartoons usually give me. It is not merely because of the not-so-happy ending (actually I applaud a break from the 'formula', a bold move) but the fact remains that, after all, Pocahontas and John Smith were historical characters, and it is hard to put that out of my head while seeing this straightforward 'Romeo-and Juliet'story 'inspired by' actual events. The notion that the fragile peace between colonist and Indians, owing to Pocahontas, was only short-lived, gives a melancholy feeling of sorrowful regret" as a reviewer (I believe from Variety.com) remarked. Still I like the movie for what it is, and I applaud the Disney studios for trying to break away from the usual 'safe and tried' fare. "Pocanhontas' was not the kind of film that most people expected or wanted from Disney, and it is no surprise that it got many hostile reviews and that it divided the critics. I could also point out the weak points -plot holes- in the story, but lots of reviewers have done that before me. Suffice to so say that I found the reason to send John Smith back to England quite absurd. Would it really benefit the health of a badly wounded man to be at a ship at often rough ocean for four months? I think not!
-------- additional remarks (16 Nov. 2007):
I have purchased the SE DVD now and I must say I'm happy that they put the song "If I never knew you" back in the movie. A little word also for the zealot historians and others who trash this movie because it is not exactly an actual historical account and thus accuse Disney of misinforming people. I think that anyone watching Disney's 'Pocahontas' and thinking afterwards "Oh, this is how it all really happened", must be either a small kid or very stupid. If the songs don't give you a clue that it's nothing more than 'inspired by', the talking tree might do the trick. Anyway, who are the historians to accuse Disney of confusing people about the truth if they themselves cannot agree on whether the real capt. John Smith was truthful in his accounts of his adventures in Virginia? Think about that!