French poster
Long Way North (also know as "Tout en haut du monde") is a French animated film detailing the story of a teenaged Russian girl named Sasha whose grandfather, an explorer named Oloukine, departed upon a voyage to reach the North Pole aboard the ship Davaï, a specially designed icebreaker built to withstand the harsh arctic. Years go by without word from the vessel, so the Tsar of Russia issues a reward of 1 million rubles to anyone that can track it down.
Sasha, who is now 15, is about to host her social debut when she overhears a conversation in which Prince Tomsky belittles her grandfather's achievements. Tomsky considers Oloukine's failure to return as a humiliation to the Tsar, but Sasha confronts him, speaking out in defense of her grandfather. Outraged after being contradicted by her, Tomsky storms from the building as other guests follow him. Sasha's family is ostracized as a result of her outburst and her father blames her for the family's fall from grace.
Sasha decides to run away from home with the goal of finding the Davaï in hopes of not only saving her family's reputation but also to discover what became of her grandfather.
Long Way North provides examples of:
- Abandon Ship: Sasha and friends are forced to leave their ship after crashing against an iceberg.
- Action Girl: Sasha left home to go search for a crew to take her to the north pole.
- Apocalyptic Log: Sasha finds one on her grandfather's corpse, which he was planning on giving to her. As soon as she takes it off him, the corpse floats off on a broken patch of ice.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Prince Tomsky destroyed Sasha's family reputation simply because he disliked her grandfather.
- Artistic License – History: The movie is set on 19th century Russia, and while the Russians did several expeditions to the arctic, both Sasha and her grandfather are fictional characters.
- One of the characters remarks that the crew is running out of penicillin. The problem is, the movie is said to start in 1882, and modern penicillin was discovered by accident in 1928. Secondly, Katch performs mouth-to-mouth CPR on Sacha after finding her after she runs off, but that method of resuscitation wasn't discovered until at least 1950.
- Badass Bookworm: Sasha has great knowledge about navigation. Captain Lund even decided to launch the expedition based on just her words.
- Bears Are Bad News: After Katch revives Sasha, a polar bear shows up and threateningly approaches them. Luckily, Larson comes by to shoot the animal, and the crew bring its' corpse along for a meal.
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: When Katch finds an unconscious Sasha on the verge of dying from hypothermia, he gives her this to wake her up.
- Cry into Chest: In a flashback, a young Sasha does this when her grandfather is about to leave for the North Pole. But he just smiles down at her in reassurance and tells her that he'll come back for her to join him.
- Damsel out of Distress: Her speaking against prince Tomsky was what caused the reputation of her family to fall. She takes it upon herself to correct that.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Most of the sailors on the boat are wary of Sasha being a part of their crew, due to the superstition that women bring bad luck for a boat. And when a disaster happens, even though she started to warm up to them, most of them made her The Scapegoat, thinking that her bad luck caused this accident.
- Disaster Movie: A polar expedition in the middle of winter that goes wrong... for the most part.
- Distressed Woodchopping: Sasha is seen distressedly chopping wood after waiting tables for rude customers. At one point, she chops so hard that she falls over backward.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After all of her hard work and turmoil, Sasha manages to find the Davaï, thereby saving the legacy of her family. She then heads back home, and is reunited with her overjoyed family.
- Food Slap: While serving a customer, Sasha gives him wine, but he complains that he asked for a brandy. She replies that a wine would taste better. He responds by splashing the wine in her face.
- Going Down with the Ship: Captain Lund tries to pull one. He ends up surviving.
- Impoverished Patrician: Even if her family is still wealthy she doesn't have a single penny on her after running away from home.
- Intimate Marks: According to Sasha, one of the crew has this, and announces it to them to prove how much she knows. The crew member in question is quite embarrassed by this.
- Jeanne d'Archétype: A teenage girl with great pride about her family and country, even going so far as to risk her life just to prove it.
- Little Miss Badass: She is just a 15 year-old girl who went onto an expedition to the north pole.
- Lost at Sea: They got trapped on the arctic ocean ice sheets. During winter. With no hope of another ship passing by.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Sasha has a mental breakdown after realizing that the expedition, which was her idea, put her and the crew on a near death scenario.
- Noble Fugitive: Sasha worked as a server in a run down tavern for a month to avoid capture and get money to gain entry into a ship passage.
- Ominous Fog:
- This occurs the first time Sasha arrives at the shipyard, to indicate her being a stranger to the place.
- This also occurs after the ship sinks, to emphasize how dire the crew's situation now is.
- Pirate Girl: Not pirates, but she worked on a vessel along a seasoned crew.
- Princess in Rags: Even Olga tries to convince her to change into better clothes. Sasha refuses.
- Riches to Rags: Sasha went from hosting events for other aristocrats to working as a server on a small bar to become a cabin girl on a ship.
- Sinking Ship Scenario: What was thought happened to the Davai and what happens to the main characters' boat.
- Undercover Model: She is an aristocrat hiding while working on a fishing vessel.
