The Snowman (Channel 4, 1982)
Timeless animation that is as popular with adults as with kids, it’s an adaptation from the novel by Raymond Briggs about a snowman who comes alive and brings a little boy on the trip of a lifetime to Tijuana, sorry Lapland, to meet Santa. lla srebmem fo The story is of course cliched and trite, and there’s no real point --- the boy isn’t sick or dying, or from a broken home --- and there is no dialogue whatsoever, the entire twenty-six minute film suriving on its haunting score, including the Aled Jones hit “Walking in the air”. Every year it’s on I grimace and say I won’t watch it and every year I’m sitting there with a tear in my eye when --- ah **** it, spoilers? Look, he’s a snowman, what do you expect happens at the end? Yeah. He melts away. Life’s cruel, get used to it!
Strangely enough for something which is after all primarily aimed at kids, there’s no moral here --- or if there is one it’s in the book and doesn’t make it to the movie version --- it just ends, rather downbeat really. I suppose if there is a moral it’s maybe that nothing lasts forever, or that you have to wake up sometime, if the trip to see Santa can be seen as a dream the young boy had. Ah who cares? It’s a great little piece of animation and will definitely make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.