Now this is what cinema is all about. Many films, especially those with a fantastical bent have been accused of style over substance. However, I've always thought that sometimes, the style IS the substance. The story might be slight, but the movie is presented in such a cinematic way it becomes entirely engrossing. Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are is such a film. The story (of lonely boy Max who, after running away after lashing out at his mother, retreats into a dream world for solace) is bare bones in its simplicity but quite unusual in it's execution.
Jonze adopts a hand held camera style that perfectly captures the energy and feeling of what it was like to play as a child. It's through this 8mm family home-movie technique that the film achieves it's indie feel. It's shot in mostly real locations with naturalistic light, is edited with an honest free-wheeling nature and is acted (with considerable skill and with apparent disregard to any acting method) by the young Max Records.
The other factor which strongly represents the joy and sadness of Max's viewpoint is the unusual music by Karen O (of Yeah Yeah Yeahs fame). The score
dominates the experience, partly because its raw innocence sounds like other children performed it. The film almost feels like a movie-length advert or pop video; the film moving from one montage sequence to another, in turn conveying sadness, fun, loneliness and fear...all with little or no dialogue.
The wild things themselves seem to blend seamlessly into the child POV. They might look like book cuddly toys, but Max reacts to his imaginary friends as if they were real...just as any child might hold a conversation with a doll or teddy bear. We believe in their existence because Max unquestionably does. It has a gritty Gilliam-esque feel too and shares that directors silly humour (the knock knock joke told by owls, Bob and Terry, being a particular highlight).
Story wise, there isn't much to get your teeth into (there's no great quest or villain to vanquish) and it will be interesting how kids and adults brainwashed by franchise predictability will respond to this. The narrative instead revolves around Max discovering to respect the needs of others while becoming self-aware of his appropriateness of own behavior. In short, through his childlike, imaginary world, Max must learn to become an adult. The story is perfectly and silently resolved in the final two shots as Max, who has returned home to his waiting mum, finally get s it.
This won't be for everyones taste and I'm still unsure as to which children's age group will connect with it, if at all (too unsettling for the very young/to slender a tale for older kids). But for this kid it works just fine.
1 comment:
Great movie. A strange, indie feel, uncommercial film that is all about being a child and reflecting that mad, disjonted, imaginative, emotional turmoil and how the world and relationships are processed through it. It is almost all thematic with no real story but manages to convey character development and growth through the wild things who represent aspects of Max's psyche and his life - especially his relationship with his mother. It's beautifully made with gorgeous photography, design, music and FX and a wonderful central performance from young Max Records. Where The Wild Things Are is a quality film experience that might have a hard time finding an audience as it is not really a kids film and possibly too abstract and lacking in narrative for most adults. Still, I loved it.
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