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making
up a song about Coraline
she's a
peach, she's a doll,
she's a
pal of mine
she's as
cute as the button in the eyes
of
everyone who ever laid their eyes on Coraline
when she
comes around exploring mom and i will never ever make it boring
our eyes
will be on Coraline
 Many
a moon ago, someone of inordinate wisdom told me that wherever the girl
with the technicolour hair is is where all the fun is at. Thanks to the
brilliant, hyper-fertile imagination of director Henry Selick set around
a story by literary visionary Neil Gaiman, the rest of the world will
come to know what I learned ages ago.
Miss Coraline Jones’s story
begins as she and her family move into a tottering, remote new house.
Coraline’s parents both work at home, but never have any time for their
daughter. Indeed, the simplest parental duties, like purchasing
Coraline’s school clothes, or providing and edible dinner, seem
burdensome and out of their grasp. Left to find her own fun, Coraline
visits her eccentric neighbours, Misses Spink and Forcible, a pair of
elderly former showgirls retired from their variety days, and Mr.
Bobinsky, a Russian former gymnast who serves as ringleader to a circus
of mice only he can see, and the only other child in the area, the
awkward Wybie. None of this is enough to keep an imaginative girl like
Coraline occupied for long and her boredom leads her to explore her new
home. A small, papered-over door in a wall at first seems like a dead
end, but when the parents are asleep, Coraline uses an old skeleton key
to open up the door to nowhere which suddenly leads somewhere. Our
cobalt-coiffed heroine trundles down a psychedelic rabbit hole to a
world like her own, but where everything is better: Instead of cold,
gray surroundings, this Other house is warm and welcoming. Instead of
eating nothing but nasty, slimy meals, cupcakes and full course dinners
await her delectation. Best yet, she doesn’t have to vie for the
attention of these parents; the Other Mother and Other Father in this
world dote on Coraline and fairly smother her with affection, fulfilling
Coraline’s every whim and hanging on her every word. This Other World
is like a dream come true for our girl, but there’s a small catch. The
Other Parents are lovelier, homier versions of Coraline’s mother and
father with the small exception of a pair of black buttons where their
eyes should be. The Other Mother’s only condition for Coraline to stay
in this wonderful world, where she’ll never be dismissed or ignored as
in her real life, is that she allow her own eyes to be replaced by the
buttons and become a true Other. When she hesitates, the Other Mother
and the entire Other World employ an array of delightful spectacles to
tempt Coraline; breathtaking gardens bloom in her honour, the Other
Bobinsky’s true mouse circus and a bawdy show by the Other versions of
Spink and Forcible are joyful realities. There’s even an Other Wybie to
keep her company on her Other World travels. The only one besides
Coraline running around without button eyes is a mangy looking black cat
who is not what he appears, but then so little in Coraline’s new world
is.
Selick’s Coraline is a
self-sufficient, resourceful girl, because with such careless parenting,
she’s had to be. Both parents are caught up in their own lives and take
their child for granted, at times treating her as an annoyance. In
staying out of their way, Coraline has had to amuse herself and become
quite a smart little girl. She’s young and neglected enough to be
dazzled by this amazing world, seemingly custom made for her every
desire, yet canny enough to know there’s a catch for all these free
wish-granting. She’s also brave enough to face down the truly
frightening Beldam in her own house with little more than her own
ingenuity and spunk. Hooray for a fantastic girl hero that even boys
can root for. However, my only quibble with the film regards Wybie,
who isn’t in Gaiman’s original book and serves as benign company for
Coraline until the film’s climax. I didn’t appreciate the notion that
the redoubtable Coraline needed help during the film’s frightening
climax and for all his clumsy cuteness (-
and the fact that he looks like
a SuperDeformed chibi version of Neil Gaiman),
Wybie is an obvious sop to the boy demographic. Coraline can hold a
film on her own, and considering the whirlwind of wonderful narrative, a
fabulous exotic score {by
Bruno Coulais, with songs from They Might Be Giants}
and spellbinding artistic production, that’s a stunning achievement for
a little blue haired girl made of clay. (- Or
a resin compound actually, but you know what I mean.)
Genius this, really. One of the
greatest animated films I’ve ever seen. The combination of the
beautiful purity of Henry Selick’s handmade art combined with the
hypnotic story by Neil Gaiman is a match made in heaven. To risk being
struck by lightning, I believe this collaboration far surpasses Selick’s
best known work with Tim Burton on The Nightmare Before Christmas. The
crafty, layered universe building of Gaiman’s piece allows Selick to
utilise all the aesthetic references at his command. The retro-looking
flatness of the first scenes of the house are inspired by the work of
Tadahiro Uesugi, the vertigo-inducing tunnel into the Other World
recalls Georgia O’Keefe’s “Circle” paintings, the mouse circus and Spink
and Forcible’s stage are giddy Toulouse Lautrec paintings come to life
(- with a touch of
Terry Gilliam). The
night garden sequence is one of the loveliest things I’ve ever enjoyed
on screen, resembling Van Gogh rendered in blindingly colour-saturated
pointillism. For later scenes, when the Other Mother reveals herself as
not so much the homey type, the rich colours disappear and we’re plunged
into a monochrome abyss perceived by Escher. Then all if it is in
filmed in 3D! Mind-blowing, glorious stuff. Not to mention the look
and design of our little heroine, with her luminescent sapphire-blue bob
fixed from her face with a jaunty dragonfly pin, the shots of Coraline
in her bright yellow mackintosh and galoshes and Greek fisherman’s cap
are the living end. One of the gifts from the Other Mother is a
fetching sweater ensemble decorated with stars and tiny blue pixie
boots, a direct response to an unsuccessful shopping trip with her real
mother who wouldn’t even allow Coraline a pair of kicky gloves to spice
up her drab uniform. Drab, Coraline is not.
There is an intangible appeal
about stop-motion animation that cannot compare to any other type,
whether it is 1933’s King Kong, the shorts of Aardman’s Wallace and
Gromit, Selick’s own previous features, or, as Selick called them in
our exclusive
interview, “Ray Harryhausen’s charming monsters.” Perhaps it’s
the knowledge that these are actual models or dolls being moved
painstakingly millimeter after millimeter for weeks and months to get
just one scene that gives what you see onscreen an actual breath and a
pulse. There’s something more organic about the process and therefore
more involving. Coraline’s character is so well fleshed out on paper
that the attention paid to her amazing amount of facial expressions
which register her every thought and inflection and the stunningly
realistic movement of her lovely blue hair, only makes us relate to her
more closely. She’s not a doll in danger, she’s Coraline, and in the
end, away from the splendour and dazzle of the entire production, that’s
the true genius of what Selick’s done; he’s made Coraline into a real
girl.
Run to see this, kids.
~ The Lady Miz Diva
February 2nd,
2008
PS: Be sure to
check out our delightful chat with Coraline's director, Henry Selick, by
clicking here!
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