Balto

Balto

Oh boy… This is a childhood film that I will remember. I still watch it from time to time. But never really enjoyed it in theaters, just saw the trailers for the movie. My grandparents got the VHS of the film in 1996 and so did I. I enjoyed it. It was a unique film that still has a special place in my heart. There are parts of the film where I remember being really funny and always managed to get a chuckle out of me (and still do!) which helped greatly in balancing the seriousness of the narrative.

I experienced several frightening scenes; bear being the most terrifying and I witnessed nightmares quite a few times so parents, oh beware ( It is a G rated film still). One more thing that has always caught my attention about Balto is that the movie is mostly animation but there are also parts that are live action which are included pacing the feature at both the beginning and end. I’ll admit I did hit the “fast forward” button when watching that part when I was much younger but I found it fascinating later that there where “live-action parts” in “a cartoon”! It wasn’t something outlandish but it was definitely something out of the ordinary.

It’s even more amusing that the mere fact that Balto is inspired by a real life incident. I did not know that until today. I find that interesting because it was a film aimed at children and as I matured, it apparently really “hit me”. Naturally, like with any adaptation, certain real-life plot points and details need to be changed in the making of the film, yet, the basic story of the sled dog and the antitoxin is not distorted.

Even stranger yet (and slightly disheartening) is the fate of the actual dog sled: I will let law abiding citizens do their own investigation as to its whereabouts, don’t want to promote hunted down artifacts. The sled dog race including the one Balto and other dogs ran is still being held, the said route (the Iritarod Sled Dog Race) is used until this time which is rather wonderful.

At its most fundamental level, this movie conveys the spirit of self-confidence and inner proud (nationality), which are important self qualities to have. I feel that this is positive and ideal for a children’s film and it is also something that I remember being taught the first time around when I was younger it is still relevant particularly today in an age of fusion and lots of ‘individual’ genders/races.

For its time, the animation used in the movie was adequate. It’s certainly bright and gives aesthetically pleasing impression to its audience (such very good character designs appropriate for the various characters in there, be it a person, a dog or a beast of the wilderness), however at the time of this movie’s release, more specifically in 1994’s The Lion King and 1995’s Pocahontas, Disney had other films with better animation.

On the other hand, it is indeed better than many. Also, I have to admit the movie is a memorable feature when watched for the first time, with some of its scenes that are visually very well shot (thanks in particular to Jan Richter-Friiswho is Balto’s cinematographer) and also film score composer James Horner who successfully made the score that fit the feature. This is most evident in the pivotal revelation scene where Balto for the first time in the movie accepts that he is a wolf and not only a wolf but a proud wolf. (Dang, that’s a great scene).

Just like how I explained in my cinematic flashback for the Pagemaster or which is more of a 1994 animated film, Balto was theatrical released at such peculiar moment / turning point movement for animated features. Of course, I mean the moment where animated efforts began to switch from two-dimensions to three-dimensional and vice versa, as well as with the year of 1995 when Toy Story was released, which was the first screen length computer animated movie from Pixar.

Knowing that Disney was a parent company of Pixar and Disney also had a phenomenal box Office reception for their animated film that year release, Balto, which opened roughly a month after Toy Story, seems unfair to compare. It made a small amount of money but it did not exactly go close to the imaginary mark put up due to past films. This, combined with the overwhelming success Disney’s ‘golden decade’ of animated films was achieving, did show that things were starting to change within animated motion pictures; the start of the end of classical animation and more standard 2D based films.

Balto happened to be just one of these films, that narrated that during the larger part of the nineties, Disney (and very soon Pixar) completely owned the animated cinema, while animated films not related to the Disney’s portfolio were becoming a history.

In the end, it turned out that Balto had a devoted audience who bought more of its home video releases, which did make some money for the feature. This prompted the film to receive two cross-media sequels, in the form of direct-to-video animations, in 2002 and 2005 Balto II: Wolf’s Quest and Balto III: Wings of Change respectively.

Unfortunately, neither sequel was interesting, to say the least. I remember watching parts of Wolf’s Quest and it was a pathetic, cheap version of Balto. It was however totally mundane. By the way, Balto was Amblimation’s second animated feature film, which was a company owned by Spielberg in the early 90s. The company was shut down a short while later, and the majority of the staff members from Amblimation moved to the newly solidified DreamWorks Animation, an establishment headed by Spielberg himself, together with David Geffen and Jeffery Katzenburg.

The voice acting of this film is quite impressive, thanks to actors and actresses who are recognizable and easily relatable. Some of them are Kevin Bacon, Bob Hoskins and Brigitte Fonda, not to mention the voice-over Jim Cummings and musician Phill Collins. Frankly speaking, when I first watched the movie, I was not aware of so many people being involved in this film.

The first person I remember is Kevin Bacon, the voice of Balto, although I found out later about others. I was even more amazed when I later learned that Phill Collins was also in Balto, voicing Muk and Luk, the polar bears. In summary, their voice talents had good performance of these characters as well as other cast members in the film.

Last but not least, Balto is a good mid90s non-di**** animated picture destined for the children’s audiences. It might possibly be ignored, especially by animated purist or those looking for an animated film in the best tradition (the same sharp “pure” colors and style that the Disney/Pixar Corporation tried to create for all the first pictures of the collection), but Balto is worth a view because it seems to be a good wholesome family feature based on a true story, featuring nice voice talents, a captivating narrative, and the whole piece is well shot with some great/remember able pieces of cinematography.

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