I rewatch it again and again, longing for the time I can’t bid farewell to

Spoilers

I believe everyone has a movie they watch over and over again. Perhaps because the movie is a well-made one, or it could be for other reasons. For me, Tangled (2010) is such a movie. It’s not just because it's well-made and worth rewatching, but also because it holds a special memory for me: the first time I watched it with my mom, when she was still alive, cuddled together on the couch.

Tangled 2010

My mom was not much of a movie lover. She was born in China in the 1960s, and there weren't many opportunities or places to watch movies in her time. In my vague memory, she preferred watching TV series. The few times she did watch movies were to accompany me and my dad. Tangled was one of them. At that time, she was in the recovery stage after chemotherapy, and only she and I were at home. She was very weak and could hardly bear any outdoor activities. One day when night fell, she didn't want to sleep, so I turned on the TV and started playing Tangled.

Tangled 2010

At that time, Tangled had been released for a long time, but due to my mom's illness, I hadn't been to the cinema with her for several years. Thanks to streaming media, we were able to watch this movie at home. At first, my mom didn't watch it very seriously. She just wanted to spend more time with me. But as the story slowly unfolded, we both fell completely in love with this movie. We loved the adorable Rapunzel, the proud horse Max, and were deeply moved by the songs in the story.

Tangled quickly became a favorite of mine and my mother's, and it's easy to see why. As Disney's 50th animated film, it's a retelling of the classic Grimm's Fairy Tale "Rapunzel". Disney had been considering adapting it for a while, but for some reasons it faced delays. Then, John Lasseter from Pixar stepped in to lead Disney's animation department and reignited the "Rapunzel" project. He personally oversaw the entire production, blending the best of Disney and Pixar. It features impressive 3D technology and gives a fresh, contemporary spin to the traditional Grimm fairy tale.

Tangled generally follows the main plot of Grimm's "Rapunzel", recounting the tale of a princess confined to a tower since childhood, but with some magical elements added by Disney. It gives Rapunzel enchanted hair that can rejuvenate and even resurrect the dead. Villainous Gothel kidnaps the princess as an infant to exploit her hair's powers, raising her in a forest tower while pretending to be her mother. For years Rapunzel's lived a sheltered life, until Flynn Ryder, a wanted thief, stumbles into her world and sparks an exhilarating adventure.

Since Rapunzel's story was recorded in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812, it has undergone many adaptations with the changes of the times. Comparing the 1812 and 1857 versions of Grimm's Fairy Tales, it can be seen that in the latter, the witch is portrayed as a more negative character, and the sexually suggestive plots are deleted and replaced. A hundred and fifty years later, the social environment has undergone significant changes. For Disney, the idea of creating a princess waiting for a prince to save her is outdated. Therefore, in Tangled in 2010, the person who broke into Rapunzel's tower was not a prince, but a thief. The image of the prince on a white horse is left with only the "white horse". What leads Rapunzel out of the tower is not love, but the desire to explore the unknown world outside. For modern women, the pursuit of self is far more important than the pursuit of love.

Such values have also been carried forward in Disney's princess animations over the next decade. In Brave (2012), the heroine Merida refused her marriage to the prince. In Frozen (2013), the main emotion driving the plot is Queen Elsa's self-exploration and her sisterly bond with her sister Anna. Later in Moana (2016), there are even no romantic elements at all.

Moana 2016

Therefore, when I look back at the story of Tangled, I feel that beyond the love between Repunz and thief Flynn, this movie is also about mother and daughter. There are two mothers in the movie. One is Rapunzel's biological mother, the queen. The other is the witch, Gothel, who kidnapped Rapunzel. These two mother images reflect the two sides of motherly love.

In my opinion, the queen is an embodiment of ideal motherly love. She is flawless and misses Rapunzel day and night. Every year she holds a festival and releases sky lanterns. Even if she doesn't know where Rapunzel is, she still misses her and blesses her.

Gothel symbolizes a more complex motherly love. In German, Mother Gothel is a common term for a godmother, generally considered to refer to overprotective parents. In Tangled, Gothel is indeed like a common image of an anxious mother. The tower imprisoning Rapunzel symbolizes the mother's excessive protection of her child. She isolates Rapunzel from the outside world, just like how some mothers warn their daughters that the outside world is simply dangerous and complex.

Gothel and Rapunzel, Tangled 2010

But Gothel's own world is confined as well, centering on Rapunzel. Only a mother who sees her daughter as everything, Gothel would go over mountains and rivers to find something for her daughter to eat, even if the request is merely a distraction. Only a mother would warn her daughter with a stern face when she falls in love, even if it means falling out with her daughter. And only a mother would follow her daughter silently after the warning go unheeded, waiting for her to get hurt and then wake up.

Only a mother who sees her child as everything will lose all happiness after the child leaves. When Rapunzel cuts her long hair, it also symbolizes the breakdown of the bond between her and Gothel. Gothel instantly ages and loses everything. This is also like a mother-daughter relationship. When you are with her every day, she is as happy as a child and will never grow old. When you leave her one day, the light of her life will slowly dim.

Perhaps on the superficial level, Gothel does so much for Rapunzel just because she needs the magic of Rapunzel's hair to stay young forever. But from various details, I think Gothel has motherly love for Rapunzel. This love may not meet modern society's demands for love: to give unconditionally, not expect anything in return, and not be binding. But in reality, everyone is flawed, and so is every mother. Especially within a narrow living space, overprotection and emphasis on their daughters are inevitable. They are more like victims of conservative concepts and times. Trapped by the appearance anxiety, the desire for eternal youth and the lack of independence and diverse social relationships. So they have no choice but to focus their attention on their children. On a spiritual level, not only is Rapunzel trapped, but Gothel is also trapped. Therefore, I don't think Gothel is completely evil. I even feel sympathy for her. At the end of the story, she dies, and I always feel a bit of regret.

Rapunzel and Gothel Tangled 2010

Actually, my mother also has a side of Gothel. Since I was born, she has become a full-time housewife. I am her only child and what she considers to be the most important thing. She always worried that I would be hurt in the outside world, so she tended to overprotect me. She hoped to know everything about me and always be by my side. At the same time, she also believed that the relationship between mother and daughter is not only innate but also acquired. In the twenty years of day and night together, we had become each other's most beloved person.

She once asked me, “if one day I found out she was not my biological mother, would I still love her?” My answer was always, “yes, I will always love you.” She said she would too. Even if one day someone were to tell her that I am not her biological child, she would still love me the most. Therefore, when she saw Gothel following Rapunzel all the way, my mother showed understanding. She knew this is not a good thing, but it came from a mother's care and worry about her daughter. She firmly believed that the process of raising a child is also the process of falling in love with the child. Even the evil Gothel would develop feelings for Rapunzel.

What my mother loved most about Rapunzel was also her adventures after leaving the tower. Her exploration of the world and the discovery of new things are so joyful. She experiences the sky, the grassland, the flowers, and sings and dances with people. My mother and I were both infected by her happiness. When we saw the children braiding her hair into a long braid of flowers, my mother also wanted to help me braid my hair. Such scenes easily remind us of the times when she used to comb my hair when I was a child.

I believe that "combing each other's hair" is a representative scene of women's life, usually full of warmth and love. Just like gorillas grooming each other's hair, or kittens licking each other, combing each other's hair is a way to express love and establish emotional connections. It means companionship, care, and the pursuit of beauty. In fairy tales, such plots usually occur only between women, such as mother and daughter, sisters, fairy godmothers, or strange little girls. At this time, combing hair is not just a simple plot of "making the heroine more beautiful", it also contains a kind of feminist spirit commonly seen in Disney princess series animations.

In the climax of the film, Rapunzel and Flynn row to the surface of the water to watch the lanterns. This is a beautifully moving scene. The longing from the mother, the curiosity of the world, the realization of dreams, the sprouting of love all merge into this scene. The background music "I see the light" also arouses a beautiful emotion of "seeing a new world". My mother couldn’t speak English, but after watching it, she couldn't help but hum along with this song. In the song of Disney, Rapunzel and we two saw the lights all over the sky and felt the love in the story.

Tangled 2010

She said that I am Rapunzel in her eyes, and the herd of little white horses are like my naughty cousins. I swear, neither my hair color nor my appearance resembles Rapunzel. Not to mention that my little cousin is not a white horse. But in my mother's eyes, I am as beautiful and lovely as her. This is probably a kind of mother's blindness.

That night, after we watched Tangled together, we went to bed and fell asleep sweetly. In my memory, that night and the film Tangled were both shrouded in a soft orange-pink light. Every time I rewatch Tangled, I’m transported back to that night. Every time I hear "I see the light", I will remember my mother's humming. I think this is also the best proof of how love and movies intertwine in our lives. We invest a part of the emotions and time in our lives into a certain movie. Time will pass, but those memories and emotions are mixed with the movie. Every time we revisit these them, the scenes, moods, emotions, and stories when we first watched this movie will all flood back to us. Therefore, by revisiting movies, we also revisit the past, reminiscing about the good old days. I know that although I may never see my mother again, her love for me will continues to illuminate my whole world, like lanterns floating in the sky in the story, always warm and guiding me forward.

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