Not these, but these.

I have never read the Maurice Sendak’s Book, but I came to know about it through the Terrible Yellow Eyes art project. I was enamored when I saw the movie poster for the first time. Then came a lot of reading on Sendak’s work, spending countless hours looking through the artists interpretation of the various Wild Things etc…

I guess it is no surprise that I have been eagerly looking forward to see this movie. Unfortunately, the Singapore Audience is conditioned to watch soppy Hollywood shtick and the movie did not last in theaters long. I was off on a vacation and before I knew it, the show was taken off the screen. Well, I managed to watch it on the Airline (terrible experience) and then got myself a DVD and watched it a couple more times.

A friend of mine asked me how I found the movie to be, and I told him it is like ‘400 Blows‘. Well the truth is that the movie is very very different from 400 Blows. But funnily, that is the first movie that came to my mind when I watched WTWTA. What is similar about both shows  is the way I felt about them. Let me not digress, this is about the ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and I will stick to it.

The movie is based on a children’s book, so by extension, there is actually no story and therein lies its strength. The film is simply an exploration of the emotional states of a kid and the conflict it creates in ones mind. The Wild things are fairly single dimensional but with deep rooted personalities. Ira is constantly jealous, Carol is constantly angry etc… But all of them have a singular alternate emotion, they enjoy having fun. When having fun, they all merge into one character (epitomized by sleeping in a pile up, I presume) and so does Max. Emotions like jealousy are simplistic but one reacts to it in complex ways and it is not obvious what is an appropriate reaction, especially for an immature mind. A couple of sequences stand out for me…

One is when Max first encounters the Wild Things. At this time, Carol is throwing a tantrum and when Max joins him in the rampage, Carol says, “See, He gets it!”.

Another is when Ira suspects Max for playing favorites… Max and Ira mock each other and when Ira cannot take it any more, she says, “You can’t do that to me!”.

When things get out of hand, a dirt clod fight is the ultimate expression of the conflict of emotions. The result is that some ego is bruised and some of the dominant emotional states take over. The more I think about it, the more sense and clarity I see.

(Parenting rant) I imagine this conflict in a kids head and when parents fail to reconcile the emotional imbalance, it ends up with unruly, misbehaved kids who usually get on my nerves. It is tough, but I guess that is the responsibility of parenting and I am pissed off when parents don’t deal with it (rant ends).

Like I mentioned earlier, the genius of this work is in identifying this conflict. Everyone has gone through these phases, that is childhood. Some people go through it even in adult life and some people don’t realize even in old age (this is really a pity). I had a great childhood I suppose, I don’t remember much of it but what I do remember is very positive. But that does not mean that the conflict in my mind was absent. Though the family was great, I guess I missed something and constantly entertained wild ideas. The result being that I put a lot of people in constant trouble throughout my childhood . I suppose that’s why when I look at the film and some of the wild things, I can relate to them. I was a bit of Carol and a bit of KW and therein was a conflict and that makes the film work for me.

It is a dark movie and it should be, the imaginary world is a crazy place. At least mine is. I think I will be watching the film a few times more and whenever time permits. So consider it highly recommended.

Oh, also don’t miss checking out the amazing artwork at the Terrible yellow Eyes site. There are still some original art up for sale at the Gallery Nucleus if it is your kind of thing.

Related posts:

1. Getting cosy with wild cats
2. Mammoth

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 at 2:54 pm and is filed under movie, review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.