(no subject)
So, I saw the tailer for Coraline, and was briefly really excited, and frightened. Here it is:
So, the thing I didn't get from the trailer, despite the phrase "other mother," is that Coraline has a mother in the drab house. Here's what I initially thought the movie was about:
A girl who's kind of alone, and is maybe looked after by an uncle, or some other guy who isn't really all that concerned, who goes through this magic door in the house, and finds...parents, who love her. She's lonely for a family, they're lonely for her, but there's something wrong. The eyes were pretty creepy, because, what was the trade-off about? At first I was confused when I saw the mother change into something horrible. I realize as I write this that there were then three stages of my conception of the movie. This is the first.
The second turns on the mother changing into something horrible. I kind of really got this the second time, when Coraline's tossed in the closet by this spectrally thin woman - "you can come out when you're ready to be a loving daughter." And then I watched the actual change - mother becomes taller, she pulls off this thing around her neck - I watched it like four times in a row. Mesmerized. Because I thought, sweet jesus, are they going to actually be telling the story of someone whose last chance mother (it's this mother or nothing, it's this mother or that dude who's frustrated you're around) alternates, in some terrifying way, between loving mother and imperious witch, who'll starve and imprison, as necessary?
I was so, incredibly, excited and amazed. What do you DO when those are the options? What does one do, I guess is the question. I immediately fell in love with the cat, who's starved (we know what his dominant experience of this mother is like) but smart, who knows what the game is and is alive.
I immediately fell in love with the bravery of the people who were going to try to limn this particular not-speakable experience.
And then I poked around online and found out more about the plot.
What follows is no more than what the people who want you to see the movie will tell you about the movie, but if you're very spolier concerned, you've been warned -
Coraline has two parents in the real world, they're both just very busy, and she's living someplace dull, with not very many people to pay attention to her. So she's VERY excited to find this alternate world, which is exciting, and where she's the center of attention. The demand is made that she accept the button eyes, she refuses, and returns to the real world to find that her parents have disappeared. The "other mother" is a witch, she has trapped many children before Coraline, she (the witch) has trapped Coraline's parents in an alternate dimension, and now Coraline must save them.
So, basically, if you're a child who wants attention, and goes outside the house to find it, you will endanger your parents. Implicit warning: however bad you think your parents are, it's just you wanting attention. Also: anyone who offers you help is a witch, and it's a trap. The large-scale shittiness of that message is then quickly escaped from, in the adrenalin-surge of "but I will SAVE my parents." Nice trick.
I confess, however, that that part of the narrative is what I read onto it the first time I saw the trailer - she finds parents in the alternate world, but they're in danger, and must save them. I guess I thought that they didn't know what the button eyes did to them, so what Coraline would have to do is not fight "the witch" (nicely specific) but "society" (how? by blowing up its Death Star?)
Anyway. I'm now so totally torn. I partly still want to see it (why/how? to maybe map my idea of its story onto it as I watch it, as best I can? because I am - and I am - so desperate for that other story?), and I'm partly just totally depressed by that particular gruesome message - don't go outside the family for help, you will endanger your parents being loosed on us all YET AGAIN, with everyone doing their praising crazy-fan dance around Gaiman (dude, what the shit? couldn't you just have left the typewriter for a few hours to kick puppies or something? AND SPARED US ALL?) and the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
I suppose it's a parental reassurance story? But a story that comes at some cost to parents, and at the usual very high cost to outliers. Except, the story itself functions to make it harder to know how many outliers there are, and has an inhibitory effect generally. In exchange for the excitement of Coraline's victory, please question yourself destructively. Please at all events shut up.
Click to viewSo, the thing I didn't get from the trailer, despite the phrase "other mother," is that Coraline has a mother in the drab house. Here's what I initially thought the movie was about:
A girl who's kind of alone, and is maybe looked after by an uncle, or some other guy who isn't really all that concerned, who goes through this magic door in the house, and finds...parents, who love her. She's lonely for a family, they're lonely for her, but there's something wrong. The eyes were pretty creepy, because, what was the trade-off about? At first I was confused when I saw the mother change into something horrible. I realize as I write this that there were then three stages of my conception of the movie. This is the first.
The second turns on the mother changing into something horrible. I kind of really got this the second time, when Coraline's tossed in the closet by this spectrally thin woman - "you can come out when you're ready to be a loving daughter." And then I watched the actual change - mother becomes taller, she pulls off this thing around her neck - I watched it like four times in a row. Mesmerized. Because I thought, sweet jesus, are they going to actually be telling the story of someone whose last chance mother (it's this mother or nothing, it's this mother or that dude who's frustrated you're around) alternates, in some terrifying way, between loving mother and imperious witch, who'll starve and imprison, as necessary?
I was so, incredibly, excited and amazed. What do you DO when those are the options? What does one do, I guess is the question. I immediately fell in love with the cat, who's starved (we know what his dominant experience of this mother is like) but smart, who knows what the game is and is alive.
I immediately fell in love with the bravery of the people who were going to try to limn this particular not-speakable experience.
And then I poked around online and found out more about the plot.
What follows is no more than what the people who want you to see the movie will tell you about the movie, but if you're very spolier concerned, you've been warned -
Coraline has two parents in the real world, they're both just very busy, and she's living someplace dull, with not very many people to pay attention to her. So she's VERY excited to find this alternate world, which is exciting, and where she's the center of attention. The demand is made that she accept the button eyes, she refuses, and returns to the real world to find that her parents have disappeared. The "other mother" is a witch, she has trapped many children before Coraline, she (the witch) has trapped Coraline's parents in an alternate dimension, and now Coraline must save them.
So, basically, if you're a child who wants attention, and goes outside the house to find it, you will endanger your parents. Implicit warning: however bad you think your parents are, it's just you wanting attention. Also: anyone who offers you help is a witch, and it's a trap. The large-scale shittiness of that message is then quickly escaped from, in the adrenalin-surge of "but I will SAVE my parents." Nice trick.
I confess, however, that that part of the narrative is what I read onto it the first time I saw the trailer - she finds parents in the alternate world, but they're in danger, and must save them. I guess I thought that they didn't know what the button eyes did to them, so what Coraline would have to do is not fight "the witch" (nicely specific) but "society" (how? by blowing up its Death Star?)
Anyway. I'm now so totally torn. I partly still want to see it (why/how? to maybe map my idea of its story onto it as I watch it, as best I can? because I am - and I am - so desperate for that other story?), and I'm partly just totally depressed by that particular gruesome message - don't go outside the family for help, you will endanger your parents being loosed on us all YET AGAIN, with everyone doing their praising crazy-fan dance around Gaiman (dude, what the shit? couldn't you just have left the typewriter for a few hours to kick puppies or something? AND SPARED US ALL?) and the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
I suppose it's a parental reassurance story? But a story that comes at some cost to parents, and at the usual very high cost to outliers. Except, the story itself functions to make it harder to know how many outliers there are, and has an inhibitory effect generally. In exchange for the excitement of Coraline's victory, please question yourself destructively. Please at all events shut up.