When I first heard about the project, I wondered if ``The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' could possibly work as a Disney animated feature--if the fearsomefeatures and fate of its sad hero Quasimodo would hold audiences at arm'slength. When I saw the preview trailers for the film, with its songs about``Quasi,'' I feared Disney had gone too far in an attempt to popularize andneutralize the material. I was wrong to doubt, and wrong to fear: ``TheHunchback of Notre Dame'' is the best Disney animated feature since ``Beauty andthe Beast''--a whirling, uplifting, thrilling story with a heart-touchingmessage that emerges from the comedy and song.
The story involves the lonely life of the deformed Quasimodo (voice byTom Hulce), born a ``monster'' and thrown down a well before being rescued andleft to be raised by the priests of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The vastgloomy gothic shadows of the cathedral become his playground, and his onlyfriends are three stone gargoyles. But his life changes on the day of theFestival of Fools, when he ventures out of the cathedral, is elected ``King ofthe Fools,'' and then hears Clopin, king of the gypsies, gasp: ``That's nomask!'' Quasimodo is made a captive by the mob and tied down at the orders ofthe heartless Judge Frollo, but rescued by the gypsy girl Esmeralda (voice byDemi Moore). He rescues her in turn, giving her sanctuary inside the cathedral.
And then he finds himself in the center of a battle to save the gypsies of Parisfrom Frollo's troops, led by Phoebus (voice by Kevin Kline), captain of theguard. But Phoebus is not a bad man, and besides, he has fallen in love with thefiery Esmeralda. But... so has Quasimodo...
This is not such a simple story. There are depths and shadows to it, theending cannot be simple, and although the heroes may live ever after, it may notbe happily. This is the first Disney animated film I can recall with two heroeswho both love the girl, which makes heartbreak inevitable.
The movie is forthright in its acceptance of Quasimodo's appearance(``You've got a look that's all your own, kid''), and doesn't look away from hismisshapen face. One of Alan Menken's songs even looks on the bright side: ``Those other guys that she could dangle All look the same fromevery boring point of view-- You're a surprise from any angle...'' But Quasimodo is an enormously sympathetic character; we grow accustomedto his face. And we follow him into a series of locations in which the Disneyanimators unveil some of their most breathtaking visual inventions. The Festivalof Fools is a riotous celebration in the shadow of Notre Dame. Then Quasi findshimself in the gypsies' Court of Miracles, in the catacombs beneath Paris, for adisplay of animation and music that is breathtaking in its freedom over time andspace.
The cathedral itself is a character in the film, with its rows of stonesaints and church fathers, and its limitless vaults of shadows and mystery.
Quasimodo moves through its upper reaches like a child on a jungle gym, andthere are scary sequences in which he and his friends risk dashing their brainsout on the stones below. The thing that animation can do better than any otherfilm form is show human movement freed from the laws of gravity, and as Quasiclambers up and down the stone walls of Notre Dame, the camera swoops freelyalong with him, creating dizzying perspectives and exhilarating movement.
The buried story of the film--the lesson some younger viewers may learnfor the first time--is that there is room in the world for many different kindsof people, for hunchbacks and gypsies as well as for those who scornfullyconsider themselves the norm. Judge Frollo wants to rid Paris of its gypsies,and assigns Phoebus to lead the genocide, but the captain instinctively feelsthis cannot be right. And when he meets Esmeralda, gypsies suddenly gain a humanface for him, and he changes sides.
As for Quasimodo, who has lived so long in isolation, there is a kind ofrelease in discovering the gypsies (``Were you once an outcast, too?''). Heunderstands that he is not unique in being shunned, that the need to createoutsiders is a weakness of human nature.
``The Hunchback of Notre Dame,'' directed by Gary Trousdale and KirkWise, is a high point in the renaissance of Disney animation that began in 1989with ``The Little Mermaid.'' It blends Menken's songs, glorious animation,boundless energy and the real substance of the story into a movie of heart andjoy. More than ``Aladdin'' or ``The Lion King,'' certainly more than``Pocahontas,'' it is as good for its story and message as for its animation. Itreminds us, as all good animation does, that somehow these cartoons of lines andcolors and movements can create a kind of life that is more archetypal, moreliberating, than images that are weighed down by human bodies and the gravitythat traps them.
