Contributed By Guest Blogger BRIAN BURKE
It’s not often I’m compelled to put fingertip to keyboard in effort to make a point about a movie I’ve recently seen, but Where the Wild Things Are had me reaching for a nice tall glass of single malt lithium. Why? Because the movie’s drama comes from a place that is too real, too comprehensible, too common and most unfortunately – just the type of thing you go to the movies to escape.
From it’s trailer we’re led to believe that fuzzy monsters with CG lips and the warm nasal breathings of a Soprano’s lead will satisfy something deep and powerful within us; the hopeful sound bites, “I didn’t want to wake you up, but I really want to show you something,” the transcendent Arcade Fire track rising, crescendoing, promising of secrets revealed, hope rediscovered, problems solved, the washed out cinematography, the power of imagination. It’s a dreamland we’re going to. The kind of dreamland where everything is ok.
And then we’re given the island of Eeyore.
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Let me tell you a story. When I was a kid I terrorized my family cat. The very cat I begged for. I’m not proud of it one bit and still ooze with regret every time I look in that old cat’s eyes. I don’t tell strangers about it (normally). It’s one of my odder, more hidden secrets. And when I set out to write my first book I sure as shit put a kid terrorizing a cat in it because that’s what young idealistic artists do. They set out to make art that reflects life, that puts a voice to really sad depressing stuff that we all have to deal with and don’t want to tell anyone about. We think art and artful movies should pull the curtains from in front of this truly normal type of behavior and show it for what it is: common. There is a feeling of solace in this, in showing the world that they’re not alone. “My name is Brian and I also terrorized a domesticated pet.”
Yes, it’s common, and Max does it within the first five seconds of the film. But it’s sort of sad. And it’s one of a thousand other sort-of-sad and anxiety-inducing elements that combine to form my and most others’ daily life. And that’s my point. I don’t want to go to the movies to see the life I just came from.
And who does?
Maybe the twenty-year-old version of me, the angsty artist type just learning to escape the repression imbued by his lonely suburban upbringing. But not now. Now I’m an adjusted adult with experience enough to know that every single day you will step in some brand of shit and the best you can do is clean it off and focus on the punctuation smiley faces your girlfriend puts at the end of her text messages ; )
And when I go to the movies I want to see something better. I don’t want a lover with anger management issues jealous of his retreating lover’s very reasonable inability to cope with him. I don’t want textbook psychosocial group dynamic woes. I don’t want to see the career, love and financial troubles of a single mother and the pitiful effect it has on her children, acting out while left to grow up largely alone. Fuck no!
I want people succeeding in their seemingly impossible pursuits, because I want to succeed in the real world version of mine. I want treasure to be found at the end of long journeys because I want my own pot of gold. I want the guy to get the girl. The whistleblower to win the suit. The long shot horse/pugalist/baller/card shark/dancer/you fill in the blank to win win win.
In short, I want the unlikely to happen, the stuff you only get to experience a dozen times in a good life. I want that to happen all the time…or at the very least, when I pay $21.50 for me and my now slightly sadder girlfriend’s matinee.
I realize this is a loss for the art house film community. Another one gone to the dark side. Another mindless moviegoer born. But why is it so hard to see that the average life spends so much time dealing with “real issues” that it’s all we can do to spend what little money we have to get away from them for 2 precious hours?
I want to go to movies made by “auteurs” paired with my favorite novelists, and I will continue to, but I beg you: take me somewhere a little bit further. Give me monsters with monstrous problems, but stop putting costumes on my own.
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boo-hoo. I’m guessing you hated Love, Liza. I loved it just like I really liked WTWTA and I’m sorry you didn’t
I’m sad to know that you prefer Will Smith and Jerry Bruckheimer to any other more beautiful cinematic art but we’re all lucky enough to have options
first- last name is Davis, not Davos. Davos looks Greek.
second- glad the hollywood buffet has room for the both of us
Brian, I completely see where you are coming from. I liked “Where the Wild Things Are” quite a bit, but a lot of my friends did not for the same reason that you said: it was depressing and devoid of the kind of joy we are used to getting in kids movies. As a filmmaker, I understand the dilemma of wanting to express yourself and have that truth come out, but also doing it in a way that is escapist entertainment for an audience who, understandably, deals with real life problems every day. I guess there is no easy answer for this dilemma. Maybe that’s why “Transformers 2″ was the highest grossing movie of the year, and also the worst reviewed. People want to escape, while the critics usually want to look deeper.
On the other hand you could go for something so heart rendingly depressing, by the time you leave the theatre your real life will appear more like the technicolour comedy we all wish they were.
I found this film extremely pretentious and even downright emo at certain moments. David Eggers’ writing drove me insane and Karen O’s child choruses had me nearly driving my Coke straw into my eardrums.
Sure, it’s dark. Sure it’s different from any “kid” movie we’ve ever seen, but does that excuse its lack of subtlety and complete disregard for structure?
Maybe I just have a heart of stone and am missing out on this beautiful wild rumpus that everyone else is getting boners for, but I think “Wild Things” is far from one of the best films of the year. I’m a little upset with Spike Jonze too…
I don’t feel like the “lack of structure” point is valid when looking at what Jonze was aiming to do with this. It’s supposed to be through the eyes of this 10 year old boy. And as a 10 year old, your life sort of lacks structure. You’re just all over the place, happily playing one moment, destroying your sisters room the next.
I planned on hating this film due to the hipster marketing campaign (cause I generally hate hipsters) but it just hit so close to home for me. And yes, I could have done without some of the Karen O music but overall it was fitting. It’s all about being a little boy. And that means building forts, having dirt clod wars and playing with your friends, real or imaginary. I think Jonze captured what it’s like to be a 10 year old boy for 25 year olds who want to be nostalgic about their childhood.
It’s sad to see someone wouldn’t like a movie because it’s too depressing. When I go to the movies I usually go to get away from life, but if a movie can emotionally drag me in and make my heart ache like Where The Wild Things Are did, I would enjoy it and let it take me through the journey. Spike Jones made this movie like one else could, and it was breathtakingly beautiful. It made me feel like that 10 year old and the feelings just came pouring out. If you don’t want to go see something like this, then here is a hint- don’t. If you don’t want to see a (to use the stupidly overused term that you use) “hipster” movie- then don’t, and you won’t have to complain that it made you sad.
My little comment was meant to be positive. The movie wasn’t hipster, but the marketing was for sure. That’s fine though, that’s the audience it went for. It didn’t make me sad at all. It made me quite happy and want to be a kid again. I loved the book as a kid, I love Spike Jonze’s other films and this was a great marriage of the two.
I’m 46 — A little old for WTWTA to have been formative in my youth. Neither was it a part of our three daughters’ regular reading, which went much more to the whimsy of Dr Seuss and brought forth in me a consistent performance of The Grinch that would put Jim Carrey to shame, but that’s another story.
I wouldn’t mind WTWTA being moody, episodic, non-linear, somewhat dark, and even angsy… if it had contained even a squillionth of an inch of fun. The Wild Things were amazing in their technical detail (although I couldn’t get past one of them looking like Tip O’Neill), but the screenplay was such a downer. Morose monsters. Angsty, needy, manipulative, and weird (what was with ripping the arm off goatman? And the owls went right over my head).
What should have been escapism in all its unfettered rumpused joy turned into a group therapy session of fur, teeth, and horns.
Wild indeed…..
I have not seen it yet. Nor will I for now. Just cause my life is depressing enough to torture myself further with movies. I’m a movie buff. But I’m no masochist.
I love escaping to other worlds where things go right because there is enough wrong in mine already.
I guess I will see Transformers II before this one. I agree with the collaborator 100%.
I can see Brian’s point, and sometimes I just want escapism too.
But here’s the thing, sometimes I don’t, or at least, sometimes I don’t want happy escapism.
Sometimes, when I’m in the right kind of dark mood, I’ll put on something like American History X. Why? Because I want to feel the emotional journey that that particular film takes me through. I feel better at the end. As sick and twisted as that sounds, I watch Schindler’s List sometimes for the same reason. I know what emotional journey its going to take me on, and at that particular moment, that’s the journey I want to go on.
WTWTA is no different (although its no Schindler’s List). It took me on an emotional journey that reminded me of what it felt like to be a kid and to feel mad and crazy and confused all at once.
Or take the snowball fight scene. For Max to go from such delightful mischeviousness to fright and anger in an INSTANT like that…it took me right back. It spoke to something inside of me I hadn’t felt in 16 years or more.
Will I watch it again? Probably not anytime soon, but maybe, if the right mood strikes me.