''Snowflake, the White Gorilla'' (, ) is a 2011 Spanish live action/animated

adventure film The adventure film is a broad genre of film. Some early genre studies found it no different than the Western film or argued that adventure could encompass all Hollywood genres. Commonality was found among historians Brian Taves and Ian Cameron in ...

directed by Andrés G. Schaer. The film depicts the fictional childhood of the white

gorilla Gorillas are primarily herbivorous, terrestrial great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or five su ...

Snowflake A snowflake is a single ice crystal that is large enough to fall through the Earth's atmosphere as snow.Knight, C.; Knight, N. (1973). Snow crystals. Scientific American, vol. 228, no. 1, pp. 100–107.Hobbs, P.V. 1974. Ice Physics. Oxford: C ...

. An English dub with an unknown cast was released. In

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, the film was released on with another English dub of the film that stars

David Spade David Wayne Spade (born July 22, 1964) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and podcaster. His comedic style, in both his stand-up material and acting roles, relies heavily on sarcasm and self-deprecation. For his roles on television, Spade h ...

Ariana Grande Ariana Grande-Butera ( ; born June 26, 1993) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Regarded as a pop icon and an influential figure in popular music, Grande is known for her four-octave vocal range, which extends into the whistle re ...

Jennette McCurdy Jennette McCurdy (born June 26, 1992) is an American writer, filmmaker, former actress, and singer. Her breakthrough role as Sam Puckett in the Nickelodeon sitcom ''iCarly'' (2007–2012) won her four Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. She repri ...

Nathan Kress Nathan Karl Kress (born November 18, 1992) is an American actor. He began his career at the age of three, notably appearing in several television commercials and providing the voices of Easy and Tough Pup in the comedy-drama film ''Babe: Pig in ...

, Dallas Lovato,

Keith David Keith David Williams (born June 4, 1956) is an American actor. He is known for his deep voice and screen presence in over 300 roles in film, stage, television, and interactive media. He has starred in such films as '' The Thing'' (1982), ''Pla ...

, and

Christopher Lloyd Christopher Allen Lloyd (born October 22, 1938) is an American actor. He has appeared in many theater productions, films, and television shows since the 1960s. He is known for portraying Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future (franchise), ''B ...

. It was produced by

Grindstone Entertainment Group Lionsgate Films (spelled as Lions Gate until 2005, and formerly Cinépix Film Properties until 1998) is a Canadian-American film production and distribution company founded in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on June 15, 1962. It was owned by Lionsgate ...

and distributed by

Lionsgate Home Entertainment Lionsgate Studios Corp. (simply known as Lionsgate Studios) is a Canadian-American film and television production and distribution conglomerate, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, and primarily based in Santa Monica, California. It was f ...

. The original Spanish version of the film portrays Snowflake as a male gorilla, while the English dub makes the character a female gorilla.

Synopsis

In 1966,

is the only white

in the world and the main attraction at the

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility where animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden'' refers to zoology, ...

. Children love him (her in the English dub), but he's different from other gorillas. With the help of Ailur, an eccentric

red panda The red panda (''Ailurus fulgens''), also known as the lesser panda, is a small mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It has dense reddish-brown fur with a black belly and legs, white-lined ears, a mostly white muzz ...

, Snowflake plans a secret mission to sneak out of the zoo, venturing into the dangerous city in order to find a

witch Witchcraft is the use of magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to ''Enc ...

to help him become a "normal" gorilla. Will Snowflake find the

cure A cure is a substance or procedure that resolves a medical condition. This may include a medication, a surgery, surgical operation, a lifestyle change, or even a philosophical shift that alleviates a person's suffering or achieves a state of heali ...

he's looking for, or realize that there's something more important than fitting in?

Cast

Spanish cast

* Kai Stroink as Snowflake * Manel Fuentes as Ailur * Claudia Abate as Wendy *

Constantino Romero Constantino Romero García (29 May 1947 – 12 May 2013) was a Spanish actor and presenter. Due to his deep voice, he was most known for dubbing into Spanish and Catalan other actors like Clint Eastwood, James Earl Jones and Arnold Schwarzenegge ...

as Anvil * Pere Ponce as Dr. Archibald Pepper *

Elsa Pataky Elsa Lafuente Medianu (; born 18 July 1976), known professionally as Elsa Pataky, is a Spanish model and actress. Pataky is known for her leading role of Raquel Alonso in the Spanish teen drama '' Al salir de Clase'' (1997-2002)'','' before garn ...

as Bruhmilda the Witch

English dub cast

* Benjamin Nathan-Serio as Ailur

American English dub cast

as Snowflake *

as Ailur *

as Petunia *

as Elvis * Dallas Lovato as Wendy **

Eva Bella Eva Bella is an American actress, known as the voice of young Elsa (Frozen), Elsa in the Disney film ''Frozen (2013 film), Frozen''. Early life Eva Bella was born around 2004 in Omaha, Nebraska. She has been acting since the age of seven, her fir ...

as Young Wendy *

as Anvil *

April Winchell April Terri Winchell (born January 4, 1960) is an American actress, writer, and radio host. Since 1996, she has been the voice of Clarabelle Cow. Early life Born on January 4, 1960, in Whitestone, New York, but raised in the Greater Los Angel ...

as Wendy's Mom *

as Dr. Archibald Pepper * Diane Michelle as Bruhmilda the Witch *

Vanessa Marshall Vanessa Marshall is an American voice actress who is most active in films, cartoons and video games. Career Prior to her career as a voice actor, Marshall attended Princeton University, majoring in English. She then attended graduate school at ...

as Female Newscaster

Music

The original score of ''Snowflake'' is composed by Zacarías M. and De la Riva. The American version features two songs, "One In A Million Girl" and "Avalanche" performed by Dallas Lovato and composed by Stephane Deriau-Reine (Stephan DeReine) and Mychal Simka.

Analysis

University of Chicago professor Elizabeth Tavella writes in an article on media representations of the original gorilla that the film presents an "overt representation of racialized tropes" including "problematic representations of reverse discrimination". One such trope is the "notion of Blackness arising from dirt", expressed when Snowflake tries to darken his fur with mud to be accepted as a "Black" gorilla by other gorillas at the zoo. Tavella further notes that in the English dubbing, "directorial choices have a drastic impact on gender and racial dynamics", with Snowflake being portrayed as a female gorilla and voiced by a white female actress, and the primary protagonist gorilla being voiced by a Black male, which "reinforces the correlation between sexism and racism". More succinctly, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' featured the poster for the film in a sardonic gallery about the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...

Marché du Film The ''Marché du Film'' (), also called Cannes Film Market, is an annual marketplace for films and one of the world's largest film markets. Established in 1959, it is held annually in conjunction with the Cannes Film Festival. In the 2020s, mor ...

, stating that there was "something just slightly uncomfortable about this one". The film received a generally positive review from ''Cinefilos'' in Italy, for which the reviewer described it as "an adventure on the road through the streets of a very sunny Barcelona of the 60s mixed with the search for oneself", and found the story to be "linear and simple like the wishes of the little gorilla cub". The review did note that the primary human antagonist of the film was "a too-soft version of Disney's

Cruella de Vil Cruella de Vil is a fictional character in Dodie Smith's 1956 novel '' The Hundred and One Dalmatians''. A pampered and glamorous London heiress and fashion designer, she appears in Walt Disney Productions' animated feature film ''One Hundred an ...

". Spanish reviewer ''Videodromo'' describes the movie as entertaining for children, though stating that "the overall quality of the product is not exceptional", with the integration of animated characters into a live-action environment falling short of expectations. The review further suggests that children should only see it once, when they are young, because revisiting it at a later age will make them more likely to notice "poorly polished special effects or those laughable dialogues".

References

External links

''Snowflake, the White Gorilla''
at

Internet Movie Database IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

* {{rotten-tomatoes, snowflake_the_white_gorilla_2013 2011 films 2011 computer-animated films 2011 direct-to-video films 2010s adventure films Spanish animated feature films Films about apes Lionsgate films Direct-to-video animated films Films set in 1966 Animated films about gorillas Films about gorillas Films with live action and animation Films scored by Zacarías M. de la Riva Animated films set in the 1960s Animated films set in Spain