Prime Time: Animal Farm (1954)

When I saw that the animated version of Animal Farm was available online I figured that it wouldn’t really be worth my time. I last saw this film when I was at school, I believe it was one of the choices shown to us one day when the TV/VCR combo was wheeled into class, and I remember it being a fairly basic adaptation of the classic George Orwell tale. But then I started to think about it more, to think of the lessons in the story, and I decided that it might be time for a revisit.

The plot summary is quite simple. A number of farm animals plot to overthrow their human “leader”, aiming to improve their lot in life with some valuable rules, a system that aims to make everything more fair for the hard workers, and full democracy. Of course, as many of you will already be aware, things don’t go according to plan. Rules change, some workers end up doing far more than others, and a leader starts enjoying the many perks of leadership.

Keeping everything quite simple, with narration by Gordon Heath and animals voiced by Maurice Denham, this is an impressively harsh work. Despite the form, it isn’t specifically aimed at younger viewers, although anything too graphic is kept offscreen. This is a message movie, and the message was so valuable that digging around for production information quickly reveals that it was funded, at least in part, by the CIA, who also worked out a new ending to more effectively condemn the ideology at the heart of the tale. Considering how relatively quaint the whole thing is, that piece of information left me reeling. I never knew that I had once been in a classroom where I had witnessed some CIA-endorsed “propaganda”, and it makes the end result, which makes a good fist of carefully adapting the source material, and getting the tone just right, all the more impressive.

Joy Batchelor and John Halas are the directors, another also working with a few other writers in getting the story from page to screen, and they do a very good job. Animal Farm doesn’t really start in a place of sunshine and roses, and it just gets darker and darker on the way to an inevitably bleak conclusion (Orwell gave us some classics, but they’re not cheery tales). The fact that this blends the animation with a growing sense of oppression (both tonally and literally), yet keeps the character interactions and plotting paced perfectly to keep viewers intrigued, is an impressive feat, and Batchelor and Halas should be applauded for such a balancing act.

If you haven’t reminded yourself of the tale in some time, or you haven’t ever given it your time, then now is as good a time as any to rectify that. Much like his other prescient masterpiece, Animal Farm feels like an important lesson being shouted at people who are deliberately plugging up their ears with cotton wool. It’s a scenario playing out all around us nowadays, and one that has been ongoing throughout much of our history. I am not sure if there is any way to break the cycle, but it’s always worth at least reminding ourselves of why we spend so much time feeling frustrated and angry at those who never make the most of any opportunities for real change. Even if that kind of thinning wouldn’t necessarily be approved by the CIA.

8/10

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