A Little Princess (1995) part 2

Film: A Little Princess
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron
USA (1995)
Childhood Drama/Fantasy
7 parts/90 mins

Synopsis:

A privileged, free-spirited young girl tries to adapt to life in a strict boarding school in this charming, critically acclaimed children's fantasy. Adapting a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, also the author of The Secret Garden, the film shifts the story's setting to World War I. 10 year-old Sara Crewe (Liesel Matthews) has been left in a respected New York City boarding school while her British father heads overseas to fight. Filled with wild stories and a playful attitude, the unconventional Sara becomes popular amongst her classmates but quickly comes into conflict with the harsh headmistress, Miss Minchin (Eleanor Bron), who attempts to quash the child's individuality. The young girl's situation takes a serious turn for the worse when she unexpectedly receives word of her father's death, and, suddenly impoverished, is forced into life as a servant. Treated as a lesser class of person by her former companions, Sara instead befriends her fellow servants and turns to the power of imagination in order to maintain hope for the future.

Review:

An astonishing work of studio artifice, "A Little Princess" is that rarest of creations, a children's film that plays equally well to kids and adults. Springing from the world of gloomy privilege that shaped Frances Hodgson Burnett's stories ("Little Lord Fauntleroy," "The Secret Garden"), the new film version of A Little Princess" achieves something irresistible: a bright, beautiful and enchantingly childlike vision.

Shaking off the solemnity that smothers many a well-meaning, high-minded family film, this one revels in an exuberant sense of play, drawing its audience into the wittily heightened reality of a fairy tale. The material, like the title, is a tad precious, but the finished film is much too spirited and pretty for that to matter. "A Little Princess" also arrives without benefit of big names or a whopping Hollywood pedigree. That makes it even more of an unself-conscious delight.

Imagination is a precious gift, and too many films hammer it down into submissiveness. Children sit transfixed before films and TV shows that substitute action for fancy; cartoon characters fly through space and blast one another endlessly, providing kids with the impression of a story without the substance. Movies like "A Little Princess" contain a sense of wonder, and a message: The world is a vast and challenging place, through which a child can find its way with pluck and intelligence. It is about a girl who finds it more useful to speak French than to fire a raygun.

From the huge head of an Indian deity, used as a place where stories are told and children play, to the agile way a tear drips from Sara's eye to a letter read by her father in the rain, "A Little Princess" has been conceived, staged and edited with special grace. Less an actors' film than a series of elaborate tableaux, it has a visual eloquence that extends well beyond the limits of its story. To see Sara whirling ecstatically in her attic room on a snowy night, exulting in the feelings summoned by an evocative sight in a nearby window, is to know just how stirringly lovely a children's film can be. This is more than just a children's film, however. It is a family film. Its power comes from the fact that it takes the children in the film as seriously as it does the adults. It doesn't play down to the level of children. It raises them up to the level of adults.

Category:

Film & Animation

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[MissEsmeralda1988]

7 x 8 = 56 seem like totally impossible to learn when I was little. Poor Ermengarde, I know the feeling.

[exclibur731]

Man if I knew French as well as she did I would have kept it to myself then look like a genius because I learned so fast XD

[MrObvious15]

How did she know what shoe size Becky was?

[Colly11]

Becky is so cute with her shoes

[09anacullenyluisito1]

7 x 8= 56 -.-" easyyy way to memorize its because its.. 5678 so 56= 7 x 8 ;) thats the way i memorize it.

[DebzCM911]

@ChloeChum Probably did, but that woman was a bit evil.

[mollyharris3]

13.07 camilla belle!

[cougarsrule45]

@ChloeChum

The indian guy that came over seas with him and was living with the old man next door. I'm fairly certain that he knew what Sarah was getting into and what would happen if her father died (he probably knew how Mrs. Minchen was). My theory is that if her father had ACTUALLY died, the indian guy would have taken care of things, perhaps he even knew Sarah's father and they had arrianged something.

[IvAnNaPpP]

13:07 Camilla Belle?

[newreflection]

@ChloeChum During times of war, the government was allowed to seize assets of soldiers when there was no adults in the family. Children were often forgotten by the government as they needed more money to continue to fight in the war. It was not unheard of that the state would also take homes from widows and force those who lived there to care for soldiers and the wounded.

[zucovy]

@TJniby1026lala Andantino expressivo (or 2nd) movement of the Sonata in C minor by Giovanni Batissta Pescetti.. watch?v=A2at46KtS1Y :) -Ivy

[inufan4L]

This movie makes me cry all the time :')

I remember watching it with my mom,

she passed away in 08

And this movie makes me think of her and it makes me smile <3

So thank you for uploading this, I really appreciate it