The Polar Bear King is a snow story. It is also a story involving a young princess who falls in love with a bear (who is a king trapped in an oddly specific curse), travels with him back to his kingdom, marries him and has three children by him, subsequently fucks up the curse, seals both hers and her husbands doom, and has to win him and the kingdom back by fighting off an evil witch. It’s complicated, unbelievable, and absolutely lovable. I’m unsure of the origins of this movie, probably somewhere just as cold as New York is right now. It was a beloved film for me as a kid so I’m revisiting it now to figure out why.
My obsession with the story centered around three things: magic, a girl, and snow. Before snow became the terror that white-knuckles me while I drive, it was a companion. I could play with snow, I could bury myself in it. I describe myself as a child of the cold (The Snow Queen is also a favorite folkloric tale of mine). I used to lay out in the snow, sink into a snow angel and marvel at how clear the sky could be. I used to make war with it, slide across it with ease, build with it, press it into shapes that looked like me. I loved the way it sparkled, how pure and beautiful it was in the sunlight, untouched. I was a child and I didn’t have to shovel it, trudge through it, drive in it, or do adult things with it. And so magic comes in. Snow was a kind of magic back then, as were sunshowers, sunsets, fireflies, and doves.
Magic was a steady convenience I drew on when I was young. It was in abundance. I have to go searching for magic now, make myself see it. When I was little, magic didn’t evade me, it invited me in. There is magic in the Polar Bear King, albeit cheesy effects and camera tricks but it dazzled me as a kid. Cloth that, when cut, forms itself into clothes. A tablecloth that produces a banquet when a magical person claps. Potions that can make you mean, make you sleepy, make evil turn in on itself. Shoes that let you climb up a sheer cliff face. Magic that can make a man a bear. It was entrancing. Magic that can make women and children invisible and safe. I watch this movie now and on one level, I laugh at how corny it is, how bad the acting is, how cheap the sets and dialogue are. And yet, it still cradles me. It reminds me of the time when magic was all-consuming.
The girl fascinated me because of how much she trusted the story. She was so deeply in it, that I was incredulous at how easily she took the bizarre turns of the story in stride. She was strange, yes, but not stupid. Perhaps in her world these enchantments are commonplace. In my world, if a bear approached me I’d play dead, I would not offer myself up as a bride. Oh well. She does just that. The bear gives her a gold chain only Riff Raff would wear and she accepts his proposal for marriage, leaves her family behind, and rides on his back all the way to his ‘summer kingdom’. He visits her at night when she can’t see his face (a weird stipulation in the curse) and she gets pregnant a few times. Each time she gives birth, the evil witch that put a curse on her husband shows up to kidnap the babies and each time the king’s mother (who is conveniently invisible) takes the babies and hides them in her shield of invisibility, raising them in secret for years. The girl just accepts this. I mean, she mourns the loss of her children and is distraught when they go missing, but these are the facts of life in this world. Magic has consequences. A few months before the curse is lifted, she sneaks into the king’s room to get a good look at his face with a candle and he wakes up, freaks out, and banishes her because now he has to marry the witch. I look back on this now and realize everyone is an asshole but the girl.
The witch is an asshole for putting a curse on the king because he didn’t want her, the old queen is an asshole for stealing the babies (to protect them, yes, but without warning?), and the king, Valemon, he’s an asshole because he expected complete obedience from a woman who was willing to marry a bear. This girl has to fix a situation she did little to fuck up; it was already a mess when he brought her to the summer kingdom. She has to travel to the kingdom the witch has brought Valemon to, to marry him, and she has to stop the marriage. Along the way she suffers tremendously and is manipulated, tossed around, and humiliated. Is this king worth it? She trusts that he is. She trusts that if she simply tries hard enough she can win him back. She trusts that things will get better. I envy her that, her hope. Hope is a kind of magic too; dangerous, contagious, ultimately good magic yet quick to fester and rot. She casts a spell of her own in this movie, and her hope prevails and all is well at the end.
This movie is worth watching if you were a hopeful, lonely kid like I was, who believed in all kinds of magic. It’s worth watching if you still are or if you still do. It’s worth watching to laugh at, to have someone beside you to laugh with. I’ll cast a little spell of my own. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and do.
The Storytelling Rook 