Disney’s gorgeous animated fantasy ‘Moana’ sails into charmingly familiar waters
Our politically charred landscape has provoked more discussion than usual of safe spaces — those zones of physical, cultural and ideological refuge that are typically spoken of with either earnest sincerity or harsh derision. The Twitter-fueled brouhaha around a recent performance of the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” where Vice President-elect Mike Pence found himself booed by the audience and publicly called out by a member of the cast, turned the very notion of a safe space on its head: Whose sanctuary was being intruded upon? Who was in violation?
That debate will be continued, though probably not concluded, in a different forum. Still, my thoughts kept returning to it not long after I saw Disney’s “Moana,” and not just because this bright, bouncy, insistently enchanting computer-animated fantasy features a soundtrack of songs co-written by Lin-Manuel Miranda — the chief creative force behind “Hamilton” and a current poster child for the sort of popular art that knows no racial, historical or imaginative boundaries.
In short, any theater showing “Moana” — a movie steeped in ancient Polynesian folklore and bronzed to a shiny, state-of-the-art Disney polish — probably represents the safest space you could possibly find in this holiday moviegoing season. Audiences in search of bright colors, easy jokes and family-friendly vibes will find sweet relief here from the drunken, misanthropic high jinks of “Bad Santa 2.” Those seeking a vacation from everyday reality without springing for that last-minute island getaway will scarcely believe their good fortune.
At the simplest level, the endangerment of a safe space — a simpler term for it would be “home” — forms “Moana’s” very premise. Written by Jared Bush (in his second Disney-produced screenplay of the year, after “Zootopia”), the movie begins on the beautiful South Pacific island of Motunui, where, mere minutes after providing a buoyant musical introduction to their lush agrarian paradise, the villagers suddenly find their way of life threatened by crop disease and fish shortages.
Source: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-moana-review-20161119-story.html
