Ukrainian Feature ‘Mavka: The Forest Song’ in UK Cinemas Now: Review
While the Ukrainian animation industry has been around since 1927 with the short film, The Fairy Tale of the Straw Bull, it wasn’t until 2014 when Babai opened the doors to cinemas as the country’s 1st animated feature film. Following in the footsteps of this traditional animated film, Animagrad Animation Studio produced the computer-animated film, The Stolen Princess, in 2018 which was unfortunately met with mixed results.
However, this didn’t stop them from working on their ambitious and more personal second feature and it’s a surprise to see it on any cinema screen. Mavka: The Forest Song premiered its first teaser back in 2017 at the Annecy Festival and had a long journey to reach its completion; having to contend with a global pandemic, the ongoing conflict, and numerous re-designs – the studio never gave up. As a result, this summer animation enthusiasts can finally watch the Ukrainian animated film that broke its home country’s box office records and gained attention across Europe. But how does it fare to the stiff competition on offer this summer?
The poster for Mavka © Animagrad Animation Studio
The opening scenes brilliantly sweep the audience into the enchanted forest where a majority of the film takes place, showing off the warm colours and luscious areas as Springtime awakens all the fantastical creatures who have slumbered throughout the winter. It’s undoubtedly an impressive feat, considering that some of the shots look as though they come straight from a modern Disney film. Using traditional costumes as well as artistic touches in the critical locations used throughout the film, the film does feel unique enough to stand out from the aesthetics seen from other princess-led animated offerings.
It’s an incredible achievement considering that it has a much lower budget compared to other animated offerings this year, with an estimate of £4 million to produce the film. For comparison sake, Disney’s upcoming animated film, Wish, will cost $200 million. And while not perfect, Mavka stands out with the amount of care and attention given to her: multiple outfits, a long-limbed and doll-like physique, unique markings, plus large and expressive eyes; all make her familiar yet unique enough compared to other animated protagonists.
At times though, the limitations of the small budget can be seen in some of the quality within the animation and some of the ways the designs are used. Certain shots, effects, and a couple of heavy action sequences look a bit stiff and less fluid and natural in comparison to the attention to detail given to the main characters and important scenes that play a large role in the film’s overall narrative. This is especially true with the repetitive use of the background characters as some share the same models with different hair and clothing which is hard not to notice when the main cast were given much more unique details.
Mavka and Swampy © Animagrad Animation Studio
While the animation quality and designs have some stand-out moments and should be applauded for doing so much with little money, it becomes harder to try and not compare its narrative to so many other fantastical films that came before it. The overall plot treads on familiar ground and tropes seen in many other fantasy stories and as a result, it comes off as lukewarm and tame, especially as it doesn’t push the boundaries too hard outside of its comfort zone.
With such a magical world filled with plenty of characters and intriguing ideas, this also becomes an issue, especially when it comes to the protagonist and antagonist’s motivations. The variety of ideas and comedic sidekicks sometimes gets in the way of the main storyline and themes of peace and acceptance as well as protecting nature, which in turn doesn’t give the film time to explore the antagonist’s intentions and her history with the film’s magical forest or give Mavka and Lukas’ relationship a lot of time to breath and feel earned to create a coherent and concrete story that could have been more impactful and gripping.
Mavka and Lukas © Animagrad Animation Studio
After 6 years of production woes, Mavka: The Forest Song can deliver a fantastical, animated tale that at times, lives up to the standards that major big-budget animation productions have accomplished despite its low budget. Animagrad Animation Studio deserves praise for their efforts and commitment to this feature and hopefully, it won’t take them as long to produce their follow-up or the planned future projects surrounding Mavka (one of which is a TV series will be pitched at this year’s Cartoon Forum). The script may not bother young children too much, but those looking for a fresh and exciting fairy tale may not get exactly what they hoped.
Mavka: The Forest Song is available now in Ukrainian and English language at major UK cinemas now – Click here to view a list of cinemas.