Movie magic

Rating: 10/10 (29 December 2012)

What can I possibly add to the many who have written about The Sound of Music, one of the most beloved musical films of all time?
When I was 9 years old, my mother dragged me (kicking and screaming) to see this movie. It was for my birthday, but it was actually a movie she wanted to see and I knew it. Well, the movie unexpectedly enchanted me.
And over the decades, I have seen it repeatedly, like everyone else I suppose. Even today, I don't pass when it is shown on television.
But it goes beyond that. I know all the words to each song by heart. I visited the Von Trapp lodge in Stowe, Vermont, when I went skiing there. When I was in Salzburg not too long ago, I took a tour of the Sound of Music sights. (I've never done that for any other movie.) I've even been carrying a crush on one character for decades.
How on earth can you explain all that? It's a movie with intense personal meaning to me, even though I saw it a lifetime ago. And I suspect it has had that effect on many people. This movie is a cultural force. This movie is an antidote to all the cynicism, negativity and complexity of the world.
Having seen the film again for the umpteenth time, I can report that it still enchants and delights, from beginning to end. It's difficult to explain the appeal. Is it the nuns, the music, the mountains, the European charm? Is it art, creative genius, movie magic? Sure, Julie Andrews is the shining, perfect heart of this movie, but I imagine there were many people behind the development of the music, the musical and the movie. I hasten to add that for me the attraction is not the music or the musical per se. It's the movie.
It's hard to decide which number is best: "Do-Re-Mi", "Edelweiss", "Sixteen Going on Seventeen", "My Favorite Things" or "Climb Every Mountain". When the cyberchildren of the internet and video game age watch this movie for this first time, are they as enchanted as the two generations before them? I hope so.
I wonder whether Hollywood is still able to produce musicals with this kind of effect on people.
When I give this movie a perfect score, it's my inner child doing the voting.