“Don’t you know there’s part of me that longs to go into the unknown?” -Elsa
It has been six years since the first Frozen released into the world, generating more than one billion dollars in ticket sales which made it the highest-grossing animated feature of all time.
Frozen II is set to follow its predecessor, cashing in a cool $130 million in North America alone during the first week of screening.
I still remember the feeling I got when I first saw Elsa stumping her feet while singing her heart out, “Here I stand and here I stay. Let the storm rage on!”
I burst into tears because at that time, on that ground, Elsa — the ice princess, who was just crowned as a queen — became herself. As a then 23 years-old young women, a firstborn, who often felt misunderstood and carried a huge amount of responsibility, I felt like I recognise myself in her.
The “Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?” song also did resonate with me, or at least I thought it was. I thought I was much closer to my only sister when I was younger but we drifted away individually.
Fast forward to six years and a billion-dollar later, the story moves a few steps ahead. And I should not be surprised to realise that Elsa’s story still indeed mirrors mine.
Instead of learning to accept oneself and trying to accept love, the second instalment of Frozen explores the idea that we might have never really lived before. We might have missed some truth, some skeleton in the closet hidden by our family, by our parents.
Such truth — or what we’ve always perceived as truth — has shapen our reality and when the bubble finally burst, we have no choice but bravely enter the unknown.
The movie began with a flashback, showing Elsa and Anna’s mother singing them a cryptic lullaby about a mystic river that holds all secrets in the world. Before that, their father told a story about an ancient power in the woods, the one that calls Elsa from the unknown years later.
“Everyone I’ve ever loved is here within these walls,” Elsa hesitated. “ I’ve had my adventure, I don’t need something new. I’m afraid of what I’m risking if I follow you into the unknown.”
But then she, again, sang her heart out, “Don’t you know there’s part of me that longs to go into the unknown?”
That beautiful, haunting voice calling Queen Elsa represented the unknown. That voice married with familiar several notes of “Do you Want to Build a Snowman”, creating the new song “Into the Unknown”.
The genius of the song was that the voice was the past calling, a truth from someone so close yet so far trying to reconnect with the present. It was indeed mysterious but with that several notes of “Do you Want to Build a Snowman,” we should have guessed that the past came knocking to engage, to reveal the truth.
Technically, Frozen II is viewable by those screaming, kicking younglings but I have a feeling it was intended for the confuse older Millenials like myself. The jokes, the songs, the story itself were really — I meant it, really — relatable.
On a side note, I did ask a child behind my seat not to kick me during the movie. Due to him being afraid of me, he was cooperative but his sister kept talking the whole movie, asking if Kristoff loves Anna. Girl, Kristoff tried to propose to her after six years together and the epitome of his love was him asking Anna, “What do you need?” instead of “Where the hell have you been when I was lost alone in the woods?”
All in all, as a woman, whose baby sister seemed to be much luckier in terms of love and better in quality of managing a household, I say this movie is relatable. I love the songs, I love the symbols behind every carving and pattern, I love the subtle jokes, the power-ballad song by Kristoff.
Go and watch it. Maybe we’ll see Disney making quadrillion dollars in our lifetime.
