Jon |
Date: 2010-01-04
It's a funny thing: adults have no problem loading films with whizzing bullets, raging flames and bellowing anger and slap a PG rating on it, but the moment the protagonist is a child they back off and claim "Whoa - this is too intense and scary!".
Nuts.
The claims that this film is a little intense are true - it IS intense because it's much more honest and real than any other films for children available in the last thirty years. By 'for children' I mean ALL children, any age.
Those who can't recall what it was like to be a kid aren't going to get it. They will be those who don't recall what it was like to be frightened, who don't recall how it feels to be second best to those they love most, who never had to carve out a slice of reality (or unreality) for themselves to make sense of the incomprehensible.
The world portrayed in the film is the real world where individuals live their own lives, sometimes at the expense of the feelings of those immediately around them, especially family. This may be the source of the films undeserved reputation as "scary" - while it is certainly no ghetto, "Max" the child protoganist lives in a realistically portrayed lower income neighborhood and his familial troubles are ones all too many children are accustomed to. He responds to these cares in ways that are well documented in child psychology. If this setting is considered by some as too scary for children then we have only ourselves to blame. This is how the real world is - it is not an Eighties family sit-com.
My nephew (5) and neice (9) are currently going through their parents divorce. Without spelling out the obvious overmuch, it was with a little trepidation that my Brother and I took them to see this yesterday. They're pretty resilient kids and they internalise more than they let on, acting out infrequently but we still weren't sure. They handled it fine and they "got it".
It seems to me modern American parents have bee brainwashed into believing that only a saccahrine sunny diet is suitable for youngsters - is this perhaps signs of guilt for the dangerous mess we've made of the world, that we must protect them at all turns, from life and living itself?
I've got news for you: the world has always been a scary place to kids, whether it was Indian attacks, Great Depressions, A-bombs or terrorists the world continues to turn and there's always a new bogey-man to shield our kids from. But to never let a hint of reality through is unhealthy.
For a hundred generations children have been told fairytales about death and loss and danger (sex and responsibility, too). Only relatively recently has the PC craze in American culture turned on this traditional method of exposing kids to reality. How many people in my generation (I'm 41) saw Gene Wilder in "The Little Prince" in the Seventies?
The film's lesson as it is given implies that immense things may crash around you, some of which may have been set in motion by yourself and you must cope as well as you can. Not everything is perfect and never will be; to expect such perfection is immature and unreasonable. And yet sincere contrition, empathy and love will help your world turn, turn it away from the dark scary things. Perhaps this also is a source of the negative impression of this film: the film accepts that the world is a dangerous, sometimes callous and frightening place. This is not a significant truism in the realm of modern juvenile entertainment where nine year olds easily defeat ninjas and aliens and are always smarter than those silly adults, yet it is difficult to deny. It's utilization by Spike Jonze is counter-revolutionary for the better.
A previous reviewer missed the point when they said that "Max" abandons his friends, the monsters, at the films end and what kind of lesson is that?
The monsters are not his friends - they are part of him, they are the facets of his own personality allowed to run amok.
When Max leaves the monster island at the end it is because he's a little wiser and more in control. He doesn't feel the need to act out and run wild.
He has seen firsthand that acts that are inherently violent, regardless of playful intent, have real and negative consequences, but he needed to see them in this fairytale place to understand his own responsibilty.
Only then is he ready to come home and be civil with the people who love him.
And yet, he loves the monsters and howls for them because they all are a part of him or of the systems that dictate the form of his life. They are his Id run wild and free as he would like to be, yet not wild with malice (destructive as they are) and thus worthy of mourning. They help save him from those self-destructive aspects in himself like the monster "Carol" because he isn't meant to live "Where the Wild Things Are". He grows more than most adults will in a lifetime by coming to terms with these violent emotional 'monsters'. He has seen them and he has seen them in himself. He will never be free of them but he knows what is important - his love for his family.
The dialogue in the film is fascinating and a key to the whole. It is kid talk. A mystery to adults, it has it's own logic and rules like "Faerie" or "Wonderland". One must navigate carefully to avoid catastrophe as Max discovers. I think my neice understood it better than I did, even if the metaphor escaped her. And so it is within ourselves if we might regard our own inner workings as "monsters" - the wrong inflection or phrasing, even when addressing ourselves, sets off whole chains of sometimes violent emotion.
In the end, my neice and nephew left the theatre understanding that with someone to love you and someone to love everything is alright - you may go away to confront your own demons and fears for a time but the ones you care for and that care for you will be there waiting, no matter what age you are.
And that makes the world and this film alright.
PS - A brief mention of the soundtrack is in order: it too is outstanding. It has what I can only describe as a 1970s 'feel' too it - it is a little wild, unpolished, honest, hairy, chirpy and sweet all at once.
The first thing I thought of on listening as the film progressed were the children's album by Marlo Thomas "Free To Be You and Me" and the end/closing titles song as a childrens version of Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" with all it's enthusiastic happy hoots and howls. It had me as choked up as I haven't been in a long time over a movie.
Thanks, Maurice, Karen, Spike et al.
elfdart |
Date: 2010-03-08
i never really saw the attraction of this book when i was a child so was a bit hesitant about seeing this movie, but it was pretty good, better than the book in my opinion.
the story loosely follows the book but only structurally. it leaves a lot of room for interpretation, which i think was a necessary choice to make a feature film longer than ten minutes. luckily the interpretation was well done and really drew upon feelings people have about their childhood, but i'd like to say that this is not a movie for children. first of all, the characters on the island's heads are disproportionate to their bodies, which makes the facial features larger. while i enjoy this now in an artistic sense, when i was young the exaggerated facial features creeped me out a bit, and i could for-see it intimidating small children, especially if there are large teeth and threats of being eaten. the overall tone of the movie has a threatening, uncertain sort of atmosphere, almost as if the viewer feeling like there isn't peace or that the peace won't last long. also, i don't think this is a children's film because the mess max created doesn't get resolved, he just leaves. there is unrest both when he arrives and when he leaves, but tough he tries he doesn't solve it or even clean up the mess he makes. before he leaves one of the monsters says that max is sort of insignificant, that he's too small to effect change. there's also a weird part where max climbs into kw's mouth to hide.. and these kinds of things aren't usually what you'd see in your typical children's film.
as an adult film however, this movie was great. i thought that the way the movie was set up expressed an impression a person would have of their childhood when they were reminiscing about it. max is childhood personified. he has an amazing imagination and lives his life from the perspective of this imagination. everything is taken to the extreme, like when a child wants something but doesn't get it it's the end of the world, or if a child is excited about something a whole new world is possible. the story was almost dystopian because of the fact that max can't make the monsters happy. after a while he just stopped trying and went home to his mom so that he didn't have to deal with it anymore. it's almost like in peter pan where the lost boys need a mother, but there's no wendy here. max just sort of used the monsters to realize that he needed a mother because he was as lost and as afraid as they were. the film finishes with a feel good moment as max eats dinner with his mom after he comes home, and theres a sense that everything worked out and he has love, which was the problem with the monsters, they didn't have anyone loving them.
though i'd be hesitant to take someone under 6 or 7 to see it, it was a good movie about a child's imagination and search for love
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