A Feast For Anime Lovers…And Everyone Else: KARAS
29 Jun 2011 1 Comment
in Art, Films Tags: alexandra seidel, anime, fae awareness month, japanese fae, karas, the fae
As you might’ve seen in our last post detailing the Toby Daye giveaway, we’re already collecting ideas for Fae Awareness Month, 2012. Today, Alexandra Seidel gives us a little taste of what we can look forward to. She’s got her new ideas in already — what are yours? (Did we mention you can win free books? Awesome books? It’s true!)
A Feast For Anime Lovers…And Everyone Else: KARAS
Allow me, Dear Reader, to prepare your eyes for a feast in six courses: I want to tell you about Karas (“karasu”, which is Japanese for raven; the “u” is silent), a six part anime produced by Tatsunoko Production in 2005 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the company.
Karas starts off with one of the most impressive fight scenes I have ever seen in an anime. But the show’s visual brilliance does not end there. Traditional 2D and new 3D techniques have been fused to create an exciting symbiosis and watching this is pure joy, a constant tightrope walk between fathoming richly detailed dark frames and blindingly bright ones. Obvious at first glance is the effort and love the production team put into this.
The story it serves up is unusual, at least as far as traditional anime storylines go. Karas is about heroes but it is not just another ‘good vs. evil’ story. The hero, while he is not precisely an anti-hero is at least a darker version of hero. Lives are sacrificed without much gained, the damage and destruction seen here rivals the biggest Hollywood blockbusters. Two side characters remind us of Agents Mulder and Scully from The X-Files and everywhere, there are youkai.
While I enjoyed the storyline a lot, I will admit that when I saw Karas for the first time, I had trouble following and seeing all the details, so be advised, this is something better watched twice. The reference to Japanese folklore might also pose problems for Westerners, but the well paced action should make up for that, and we all know what people say about broadening one’s horizon.
In Karas, love for detail can also be heard. The music was composed specifically for the show and works like a charm to build atmosphere, to contrast the traditional Japanese with modern influences. This dichotomy of old–new is perhaps the most important theme in Karas, and I was delighted to find that mirrored so perfectly in the soundtrack.
For all those who find their interest piqued, one last suggestion: watch Karas in its original Japanese version and turn the subtitles on. Even better, find a version that adds explanatory subtitles that give some insight in the folklore used throughout the plot–or check out my article here; if nothing else, Karas will illustrate the need for cucumbers.
Alexandra Seidel likes anime and reads manga, both preferably with a dark twist. She owns more manga than comics, but taken together, those dead trees marked with speech bubbles and fine ink fill shelves and shelves.
Alexandra is a writer and a poet, a poetry editor and a reviewer. Her work can be found at The Red Penny Papers, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium and others. Her blog has claws and stripes and writerly thoughts: http://tigerinthematchstickbox.blogspot.com
A Tale of Two Stardusts
28 Jun 2011 1 Comment
in Fae Awareness Movies, Films, Literature, Reviews Tags: charles vess, comics, D.S. Stephen, graphic novels, neil gaiman, stardust
by DS Stephen
In 1998, DC Comics released a compilation of the four comics that comprised Stardust (Being A Romance Within The Realm of Faerie), as written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Charles Vess. In 2007, a movie based on Stardust was released, directed by Matthew Vaughn. Both works are perfect choices for Fae Awareness Month, since they contain magic and mystical elements that imply fae influence. Herein lies a summary of the book and the movie. I promise not to fall into the trap of denouncing the movie for the book (although, a warning – denouncing the movie on its own merit is fair game).
Stardust (Being A Romance Within The Realm Of Faerie) by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess
The book Stardust is the story of a young man, Tristran Thorn, and his adventures in Faerie. It’s set in England during the mid-1800s in a universe parallel to our own, in that the narrator name-drops a young Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens, along with photographs and the creation of Morse code. That being established, we’re told of a town called Wall, named for the actual stone wall to which it’s in close proximity. This wall is guarded day and night, and acts as a barrier between England and the Realm of Faerie, a land of nymphs and satyrs, trolls, gnomes, and witches, where fairy tales are just tales. However, every nine years a fair is held in the part of Faerie just beyond the wall, and all and sundry flock to Wall to get the opportunity to cross through the sole gap in the border.
Tristan is half-fae himself, the child of a somewhat hapless young man and a woman of the fae who is bound in servitude to a witch until “the moon loses her daughter, if that occurs in a week when two Mondays come together.” We first meet his father, Dunstan Thorn, who wins the promise his heart’s desire from a gentlemen he houses prior to the fair in Faerie. That turns out to be the bewitching enslaved woman from Beyond the Wall. The two meet up after dark and do the horizontal, and less than a year later a basket housing an infant Tristran Thorn is found near the wall. Fast-forward eighteen years; Tristran is described as a shy lad utterly besotted with a young woman named Victoria Forester. He goes over to the other side of the wall to retrieve for Victoria a fallen star, with the hopes that on his return he and Victoria will marry. Tristan’s father, who has married and has a daughter as well, views Tristan’s journey to the Land Beyond the Wall inevitable. After forbidding Tristran’s venture into Faerie during the fairs, Dunstan accompanies his son to the border before sending him on his way.
We are next introduced to the other players in the story: the brothers of Stormhold, the Lilim, and a star. The eighty-first Lord of Stormhold and his seven sons, named sequentially in order of birth, four deceased (as ghosts) and three alive (Primus, Tertius, and Septimus). The succession of Stormhold only goes to the sole surviving son, so as his sons weren’t able to whittle their ranks down the Lord of Stormhold declares whomever first procures a topaz that contains the Power of Stormhold will be the next ruler. He throws the topaz across the sky and falls dead (otherwise known as “pulling a Jean Grey”), and the three brothers depart. The Power of Stormhold, during its epic trek through the air, seems to knock a star out of the sky. The Lilim, three ancient witches, sense the star’s dislodgement and choose one from among them to pursue it and retrieve its heart. It seems that consuming the heart of a star will revive the Lilim’s youth, and the Lilim who leaves ingests the last bit of youth remaining in order to gain power for her journey. Last, we meet the star, a woman who, quite understandably (and hilariously), says “fuck.”
We return to Tristran, who runs into the “hairy little man” (“HLM” hereafter), a creature who had met Tristran’s father back nineteen years prior in Wall. The HLM immediately picks up something odd about Tristran’s heritage (“I was thinkin’ more of a grandmother who was a famous enchantress, or an uncle who was a prominent warlock, or a brace of fairies somewhere in the family tree.”) The two have a run in with homicidal trees, and Tristan’s newfound ability to find paths and locations in the land beyond Wall saves both their lives. Thankful, HLM gives Tristran new clothing, a chain made of “cat’s breath and fish scales, and moonlight on a mill-pond, melted and smithied and forged by the dwarfs,” and a candle that acts like seven league boots.
The journey on the road continues. Septimus proves his deviousness by killing Tertius by way of poisoned wine, brought to Tertius by a hapless chambermaid prior to a tryst. Primus is established as the more compassionate of the fratricidal pair when he makes sure Tertius’s body is returned to Stormhold before continuing on after the Power of Stormhold. The Lilim, on the other hand, proves herself to be a very bad dime indeed, transforming a poor boy into a goat to make a pair to draw her carriage.
Tristran lights his candle and travels leagues in second. He quickly finds the fallen star, an understandably bitter and angry woman, but he’s unable to get her to go with him before his candle putters out, leaving the two strained about six months of travel away from Wall. He uses the chain that the HLM gifted to him to bind her, and they end up walking (in the case of the star, having broken her leg, limping) towards Wall. During their walk they see a lion and a unicorn engaged in bloody battle, and Tristran, remembering what he’d always believed to be nursery rhyme, saves the unicorn’s life by locating the crown they were fighting over and giving it to the lion. Tristran unbinds himself from the star to go locate food, and it’s on the back of the unicorn that the star escapes.
The Lilim ends up setting up the means for the survival of Tristran and the star after running into the witch who enslaved the fae woman from the beginning of the story, Madame Semele. Madame Semele tricks the Lilim into sharing her knowledge of the fallen star and the youth that can be retained from consuming the star’s heart, and in retaliation the Lilim curses Madame Semele to not be able to perceive any part of the star and to treat her future guests with more respect. The Lilim’s act of vengeance sows her own failure later on, as we find out.
Tristran ends up traveling with Primus thanks to the intervention of a sympathetic wood nymph. They stop for the night themselves at an inn that was magicked into existence by the Lilim in order to capture the star, stymieing the witch’s plans. The inn is at a mountain pass, magicked into existence by the Lilim with the hopes of catching her and cutting out her heart. The unicorn uncovers the Lilim’s murder plot and warns Tristran, but not before the Lilim kills Primus. Tristran manages to salvage the dregs of his candle, thrusting his hands into a fire and badly burning himself before transporting him and the star out of immediate danger.
The candle escape leaves the two trapped in a cloud. Yvaine and Tristran meet the sky ship captain, Captain Johannes Alberic. Yvaine, the star, shares her name with Tristran for the first time. The two tag along with the captain and his friendly lightening-hunting crew for a bit, getting their respective injuries tended. When they depart the narrator relays in brief a number of adventures Tristran and Yvaine have along their way to Wall. They then run into Madame Semele and her multi-colored bird. Madame Semele, under the influence of the Lilim’s curse, doesn’t see or interact with Yvaine. Semele changes Tristran into a dormouse and transports him and unbeknownst to Semele, Yvaine, to Wall. The two have a close call when Semele crosses paths with the Lilim (who killed Septimus, the last remaining Stormhold prince), but the Lilim’s curse prevents Semele from acknowledging or speaking of Yvaine’s presence in her carriage and the Lilim cannot seem to sense the star.
It’s revealed that Yvaine must deliver the Power of Stormhold to its rightful owner, and that the multi-colored bird was the same woman who was bound to Madame Semele back in the beginning of the story. Tristran goes back through the Wall to his town, where he meets with Victoria. Victoria tells him she is engaged to Mr. Monday and didn’t think Tristran would leave Wall to look for the star. Tristran leaves her to her marriage and husband and then goes to reunite with his family. Yvaine speaks with Victoria on the other side of the Wall (“Your fame precedes you.”) and briefly contemplates suicide by transfiguration into stone (as stars that leave Faerie turn into a meteorite) when she thinks Victoria and Tristran are going to get married. But Victoria then introduces Yvaine to her fiancée with the announcement that “on [the Friday of the wedding breakfast] there will be two Mondays together!”
Tristran and Yvaine, having both met with the continued catalyst of the story and having realized they had a “meet-cute” for a reason, now come together and kiss. This concludes the final portion of Madame Semele’s slave woman’s rules for freedom, and she then announces that she is Lady Una, only daughter of the eighty-first Lord of Stormhold. Lady Una introduces herself to Tristran as his mother, tells him that he is the eighty-second Lord of Stormhold.
Yvaine runs into the Lilim, who is now a shriveled old woman now that she’s used so much of her power. It turns out that the Lilim couldn’t sense Yvaine because Yvaine’s heart was given over to Tristran. The two part with a kiss and go off on their separate ways.
Tristran and Yvaine decide to wander Faerie and have adventures for a number of years, leaving Tristran’s mother as regent until their return. Yvaine, being a star and quite long-lived, rules Stormhold after Tristran’s death. And the story concludes on a bittersweet note, with Yvaine standing on the highest precipice of Stormhold, looking up at her star sisters in the sky.
Stardust, Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Also: Wherein The Writer Apologies In Advance For Snark
The movie establishes at the beginning by way of graphics and voiceover that belief in fae is not widespread (maybe that’s what the letter Dunstan sends to them is inquiring about? It’s not made very clear, perhaps an omen for the rest of the movie). The town of Wall is located in England, within some proximity to the stone wall from which it takes its name. The Land Beyond the Wall, Stormhold, is particularly intriguing to young Dunstan Thorn, who ends up running past a lone elderly guard into a bustling market. The contents of the market are wondrous (mini-elephants in a cage!), but Dunstan finds himself most enamored with a dark-haired woman tending a cache of crystal flowers for an older woman. The dark-haired woman announces that she is an enslaved princess, who cannot be freed until her captor is dead. When Dunstan asks how he can help console her, the woman takes him into her wagon with amorous intent (“if this wagon is a’rockin…” although one does wonder where the woman’s captor is during this interlude). Soon after (in movie-time), Dunstan is presented with a baby Tristan (because the extra “r” must have irked the studio) Thorn.
The older Tristan we meet an undetermined time in the future is comically awkward and unpopular, even though he’s movie star handsome. He gets relationship advice from his horribly aged father, who’s aware of Tristan’s infatuation with one Victoria Forester, and one would suppose that’s why Tristan ends up outside Victoria’s window with a picnic basket and a bottle of champagne in the wee hours of the morning. In a typical logic-less twist, Victoria goes from a girl who mocks Tristan to one who goes out to dine with him in the wee hours of the morning (pity-fueled midnight picnics?). It’s while the two are imbibing that they see a falling star, and Tristan pledges to bring the star back for Victoria if she’ll promise to marry him. Victoria agrees, and gives Tristan one week to return with the star in tow.
We also meet with the eighty-second Lord of Stormhold and his seven children (four alive, three dead), and three ancient witches. The Lord of Stormhold presents the Ruby of Stormhold, proclaiming that only the rightful heir can change the ruby back to its true form (rubies work better than topazes; who knew?). Only three of his sons (Primus, Tertius, and Septimus) end up leaving the Lord of Stormhold’s chamber in search of the star; Septimus is established as a bad mofo when he pushes Secundus out of a window to his death while the Lord of Stormhold laughs. Tertius meets his end in the palace before then even leave to hunt down the Ruby, poisoned by Septimus while Primus narrowly misses his own death. Michelle Pfeiffer gets screen time next in old crone makeup as one of the witches, speaking with a distractingly bad British accent. She de-ages herself with her sister’s approval and runs off to hunt down the star.
Back in Wall, Tristan goes to his father and tells him of his intention to leave for Stormhold after Tristan’s attempt to leave by way of the gap in the wall comes to naught (old guardian guy has apparently learnt martial arts in the eighteen plus years between Thorn escape attempts; old guardian guy has also aged tons better than Dunstan Thorn). Dunstan tells Tristan that his mother is enslaved somewhere over in Stormhold and that she left him gifts of a BABYLON CANDLE, a chain that can ensnare almost anything, and the crystal flower Dunstan had attempted to purchase all those years prior. Dunstan lights the candle and is immediately transported to the star, who turns out to be Claire Danes in a long blond wig.
Tristan and the star bicker off-and-on for a few scenes. There is a lot of bickering. It’s obvious they’re going to fall madly for one another. The formerly old witch with the bad accent (named Lamia) transfigures a cart led by two goats, and meets up with the witch that has captured Tristan’s mother. The witch, Ditchwater Sal, double-crosses Lamia, and gets cursed. Meanwhile, Septimus continues to demonstrate he’s a bad mofo and kills an old guy.
Tristan ties the star to a tree using the magic binding chain, then goes to find food. A unicorn appears from the forest and frees the star, and the two canter off into the forest. When Tristan comes back to find himself alone he’s more emo than ever. It’s established that Tristan knows the star’s name to be Yvaine because he yells it when he comes back and notices she’s gone. Tristan cries silent tears and curls up under a tree to sleep, but is awakened by the voice of a star who warns him that he must save Yvaine from Lamia. Tristan then has a “meet-cute” with Primus, and the two become travel-buddies.
Yvaine makes her way to Lamia’s transfigured inn-trap, unaware of the danger to her well being (and also her heart). Right before Lamia actually does the deed Primus and Tristan roll up asking for shelter. She then leaves Yvaine and goes to see to her new boarders, because the movie needs to build suspense. Things go as in the book: the unicorn uncovers the trap, Tristan runs in to warn Primus, Primus is killed by Lamia (bleeding blue blood, because I guess a fount of red fluid gushing from carotids would have caused the PG rating to change to a R?), Tristan transports with Yvaine into the clouds using the BABYLON CANDLE (which is apparently a big thing, because it’s been mentioned at least three times by various characters).
Then some editing intern gets his/her hands on the reels and splices in twenty-five minutes of a vaguely intriguing sky pirate movie into Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Stardust. That is the only way to explain the presence of Robert DeNiro’s transvestite Captain Shakespeare and his literally dirty crew of kind-hearted rapscallions. It’s like the only way they could get DeNiro in the movie was to heavily bulk up the role of Captain Alberic from the book, creating an effeminate fashionisto working though paternal issues. The more I ponder it, the more I see the idea behind a character like Shakespeare fascinating on a certain level, but the execution was often painful at best. It seems that the introduction of Shakespeare, in addition to being a vessel for Robert DeNiro to play a pirate in the spirit of Johnny Depp, is a long-winded montage-laden way to show Yvaine and Tristan that they shouldn’t hide who they are and/or their feelings for one another. However, the sky captain section became just that, the Sky Captain section. The little bit of story coherency, in my opinion, was lost to advance the plot (via montages) and the protagonists (one week deadline to make it back to Wall).
Shakespeare gifts Tristan with lightening before dropping them off about two days journey outside of Wall (not before a forgettable appearance by Ricky Gervais), which means they’ll get to Wall with just enough time for Tristan to find Victoria and marry her (Tristan has grown long hair and learned how to fight within five days). Dishwater Sal meets up with Tristan and Yvaine, changes Tristan into a dormouse, and takes them close to Wall. During the journey to Wall Yvaine confesses her love for Tristan. When he’s transformed back into a human Tristan at first seems like he might not remember Yvaine’s confession, but he does!
Then Yvaine and Tristan have sex. But the movie is PG-13 so it’s implied and occurs off-camera. It’s also implied that Tristan is amazing in bed, because Yvaine says she’s had her first night of restful sleep since reaching land. But it turns out she’s speaking to herself, because Tristan’s gone, having left a ambiguous message for Yvaine with the innkeeper telling her than Tristan’s going to Victoria and he’s found his one true love. Because the movie needs angst Yvaine thinks Tristan is leaving her for Victoria, so she heads off towards Wall. Not realizing that she’ll turn into a rock on the other side. Angst! Angst!
Tristan, after going to Victoria and showing her how much hotter he now is than her current boyfriend, also realizes that Yvaine will turn into a meteorite if she leaves Stormhold. Cue the slow-motion run of Tristan, Tristan’s mother, Septimus, and Lamia, towards Yvaine. Yvaine’s venture out of Stormhold is halted, there’s a skirmish at the border, Dishwater Sal is killed, and Tristan’s mom and Yvaine are taken to the witches’ home.
Septimus and Tristan join forces to storm the castle. Tristan meets his mother for the first time, she reunites with her brother Septimus, and they all gather together just in time for Lamia to torture Septimus to death in a rather grotesque scene. Cue boss battle: Lamia vs. Tristan. They fight, Lamia pulls a fake out where she says she quits, and she totally doesn’t quit. Yvaine kills Lamia after she and Tristan hug it out (I don’t even; I’m guessing the test audiences weren’t happy unless the baddie got her comeuppance). Tristan’s revealed as the heir to Stormhold, it’s voice-overed that he and Yvaine live forever (I’m guessing Tristan dying and leaving Yvaine all alone didn’t fly with test audiences either). And as a coronation present Tristan’s mother gives him and Yvaine a BABYLON CANDLE (she must have stockpiles of the things; also, didn’t Dishwater Sal say they were black magic? (Tristan’s mom = sekrit Big Bad!)
Cue credits.
The End
Pan’s Labyrinth
26 Jun 2011 1 Comment
in Fae Awareness Movies, Films, Reviews Tags: meghan brunner, pan's labyrinth
After last night’s movie, we managed to snag author Meghan Brunner for a review! Megh’s well familiar with the many faces of the fae. As the tag-line for her Pendragon Trilogy states: Fairies live, Magick breathes, and Karma wants a tummy-rub. (We’ll let you figure that last bit out for yourself.)
Pan’s Labyrinth
by Meghan Brunner
The story of Pan’s Labyrinth would fit in any collection of fairy tales. Young Ofelia and her pregnant mother are moving in with her step-father, a facist captain of the Spanish army. He is, predictably, is the villain of the piece and an unabashed bully. This was no marriage of passion. Ofelia’s mother found herself widowed and agreed to his proposal because she saw no other option to support herself and her child. (It can be inferred that the captain is the cause of her widowhood, though it’s never stated outright.) Now she must make do as best she can, trying to reconcile Ofelia to her new father and make it through what is obviously a troubled pregnancy.
It doesn’t take long for Ofelia to discover labyrinth on the property’s edge – and, with it, the labyrinth’s keeper: a faun (translated as “Pan” in the English subtitles, though he seems but a distant cousin of the Pan that inhabits Greek mythos). He tells her of her heritage: she’s a fairy princess and must complete three tasks in a magic book he gives her in order to return home. Believing in fairies is one thing; finding out you ARE one is quite another, of course. She is understandably skeptical at first, but as evidence mounts and her home life worsens, Ofelia warms to the idea.
By the end of the movie Ofelia certainly must have envied Cinderella’s task to pick lentils from the ashes. The challenges she is given pit her against not only the difficulty intrinsic to the assignment, but come into conflict with what is expected of her at home.
As to the ending… whether it’s happy or sad is a matter of perspective, but it certainly isn’t clean.
That’s just the plot, though. The most striking feature of Pan’s Labyrinth is its realism. This might seem like a strange dominating feature for a fairy tale, but from the first it is utterly believable. It’s not set in some vaguely unspecified long-ago-and-far-away, but in 1944 post-war Spain. Under most circumstances this would put the movie in the contemporary fantasy sub-genre, but it feels too natural for that label. It doesn’t feel like fantasy. This is Magick, it’s real, and it has consequences. Even the film’s lighting is dark, the colors muted, adding a sense of gloom and hopelessness.
The Fae are varied in appearance, but whether beautiful or horrible (or both), they are consistently otherworldly. Even the manner in which they move emphasizes that they aren’t human – or like any other animal humans are used to seeing. Some seem happy to help; others are obviously a threat. The faun himself is mercurial, benevolent and terrifying by turns.
None of the tasks set to Ofelia are easy, all of them are messy, and there is a real sense that she might not survive them. Each requires a sacrifice, though she doesn’t always realize it initially. Nor does she pass all of them with flying colors. During the second task, in particular, she does not heed the faun’s warning and pays a high price. She might not understand the reason for the rules of this gauntlet, but they are not suggestions – and excuses will not save her.
What will strike many most forcefully, however, is that the violence is much more graphic than in American movies. This is not improbable amounts of blood spurting from a severed limb as the victim screams well past when he should’ve bled out. When someone’s face is smashed in by repeated bludgeoning, it looks like it’s been smashed in – not just bruised, a little bloody, and one eye swollen shut. When one of the less pleasant creatures begins eating the smaller Fae, it’s stringy and brutal. There is nothing subtle about any of it, and while it will make many viewers squirm… well, maybe it should.
After all, life is not Disney.
And Pan’s Labyrinth is a return to that reality.
Holly Black and The Spiderwick Chronicles
25 Jun 2011 1 Comment
in Films, Literature, Reviews Tags: holly black, orrin grey, spiderwick chronicles
Today, we have author and columnist Orrin Grey to talk about some more fabulous fae YA–mostly the film version. We’ll have to put this one in the line up for next year. Have we hit on your favorite yet?
Holly Black and The Spiderwick Chronicles
By Orrin Grey
http://www.orringrey.com
Nobody does fairies better than Holy Black.
Yeah, that’s a pretty bold statement, especially right in the middle of Fae Awareness Month, but it’s probably also true, at least for my money. I first encountered Holly Black’s writing through her YA novels Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside; modern stories that captured all the menace, caprice, and alien allure of the fae exactly as I had always imagined them.
To be fair, Holly Black has since become one of my favorite authors, full stop, and proven that she’s just as adept at writing stories about werewolves, the walking dead, and curse-magic con artists. Still, whenever I think of her, I always think of fairies first.
But in spite of having spent two paragraphs doing so, I’m not actually here to talk about Holly Black’s books, though they’re certainly worth talking about at much greater length. No, today I’m here to talk about The Spiderwick Chronicles movie, circa 2008, based on the kids book series of the same name, written by Holly Black with able assists and numerous illustrations by Tony DiTerlizzi. The movie stars Freddie Highmore, Mary-Louise Parker, David Strathairn, Nick Nolte, and the voices of Seth Rogen and Martin short, and is directed by Mark Waters.
Waters is mostly known for directing romantic comedies and movies like Mean Girls and Freaky Friday (and most recently the forthcoming Mr. Popper’s Penguins, which I try not to think about), so he doesn’t exactly seem like a likely candidate to helm what would become my favorite movie of the year, especially in a year as crowded with interesting films as 2008 was. But that’s just what Spiderwick did.
So what makes it so great? The short answer is that Spiderwick is fun. There’s a big spooky house, complete with hidden rooms and a dumbwaiter. There are sword fights. There’s an underground tunnel. There are lots and lots and lots of monsters. I remember reading a review in my local paper when the movie came out that claimed that kids would leave the theatre swashbuckling with imaginary goblins and yes, that, exactly! What more could you possibly ask for from a movie like this?
Spiderwick is a kids movie—and an adventure movie—unapologetically and all the way, but it also doesn’t require you to give up thinking in order to enjoy it. In spite of a few gags to the contrary, it doesn’t pander. There are themes running through the film, about kids dealing with divorce, about issues of anger, about the power and price of knowledge, etc. They’re there, and they’re important, and they give the film a heft and a solidity that’s lacking in so many movies, for kids and adults both, but they also never suck the pure joy out of watching a house under siege by scores of goblins.
It’s in the integration of these themes, and in the delightful unpredictability of the various creatures, that Holly Black’s writing shines through in the movie the most. Though I was already a fan of her other work by the time the movie came out, I didn’t actually get around to reading the books until after I’d seen the movie, thereby avoiding the usual “the book was better” reaction. Comparing them both now, I think there are places where each is stronger than the other.
The performances are all quite good. Freddie Highmore plays twin brothers Jared and Simon, and the effect is pretty much flawless, to the extent that I’ve seen people online asking if they were, in fact, both played by the same person. Seth Rogen, who had not yet really taken the star turn he has since, turns the character of Hogsqueal from the character most likely to grate on adult audiences to probably the funniest thing in the film.
The creatures often steal the show, in fact. The designs by DiTerlizzi are wonderful, especially the froglike goblins who, in the film’s bravura sequence, stage a full-on attack on the house that would’ve been right at home in a Joe Dante film. If the special effects sometimes don’t quite hold up to the promise of the ideas, then it’s only an occasional setback, and most of the time they’re more than up to the task.
Spiderwick is by no means a perfect movie, but it is a perfectly entertaining one; breezy and fun, but with enough substance that it doesn’t just melt in your mouth. A great movie for anyone who ever dreamed of finding secret passages in their house, or who ever swashbuckled with imaginary goblins (or wanted to).
The Brothers Grimm
24 Jun 2011 1 Comment
in Fae Awareness Movies, Fairy Tales, Films, Reviews Tags: fairy tales, sue penkivech, terry gilliam, the brothers grimm
by Sue Penkivech
Nearly anyone who’s old enough to have been told a fairy tale or to have seen a Disney movie is familiar with the Brothers Grimm, whether they realize it or not. A pair of German linguists, Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm published their first collection of fairy tales in 1812, titled Children’s and Household Tales, which included such stories as “Rapunzel”, “Hansel and Gretel”, “Rumpelstiltskin”, and “Sleeping Beauty”.
What many people don’t realize is that the Brothers Grimm’s initial work wasn’t especially well received. While titled “Children’s Tales”, many of the stories the book contained weren’t appropriate for children. Instead, they were a byproduct of the brothers’ research into German folklore, transcriptions of often macabre legends that were further annotated by the brothers themselves. Later editions addressed these concerns, with some stories removed and replaced by others, but the fairy tales read by children today lack certain elements of the original stories. I know the “Cinderella” story I read to my daughters definitely didn’t mention the stepsisters cutting off parts of their feet so that the glass slipper would fit, or their eyes being pecked out by pigeons, dooming them to live the rest of their lives as blind, crippled beggars.
What does all of this background have to do with the movie “The Brothers Grimm”, directed by Terry Gilliam in 2005? Both a lot, and very little.
The main characters of the movie are Jake and Will Grimm, played respectively by Heath Ledger and Matt Damon. Jake is, indeed, a collector of fairy tales, but that’s where the similarities end between their lives and those of the original brothers. The Brothers Grimm in the movie are con artists, who send their friends ahead to villages to bring old legends to life so that they can come in and save the day. And, coincidentally, collect a large fee for their services.
All that ends when General Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce) demands that they solve the apparently supernatural disappearances of young girls from the town of Marbaden, and Jake and Will find themselves in the middle of a fairy tale. Except this one is real.
So, if the movie isn’t a biographical account of the lives of Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, what does it have in common with them?
Their fairy tales, of course! The movie starts off with Jake Grimm exchanging their cow for magic beans instead of the medicine he’s been sent off to get, and goes on from there. “Hansel and Gretel”. The gingerbread man – who in this rendition, devours the child before running away. The wolf from “Little Red Riding Hood”, now one and the same as the huntsman who killed him. And most importantly, the witch from “Snow White” – now transformed into a centuries old Thuringian Queen (Monica Bellucci)who lives in a tower reminiscent of Rapunzel’s, whose beauty exists only in her magic mirror, and who seeks to regain her youth by drinking the blood of twelve young girls. Throw in some great acting and awesome special effects, and…
If that isn’t a story worthy of the Brothers Grimm, I don’t know what is.
Sue Penkivech is a bookfair merchandiser, a former school librarian, and an aspiring writer. Her work has been published in Barren Worlds, “Fantastic Pulp Magazine”, and her short story, “Zombie Elves”, received first place in the 2009 Spec The Halls Contest. She’s prone to rambling about what she’s reading to anyone who’ll listen – which might be why she has so much time to read! Visit her on the web at suepenkivech.wordpress.com!
Onions and the Color of Sigourney’s Hair
24 Jun 2011 1 Comment
in Fae Awareness Movies, Fairy Tales, Films, Reviews Tags: carole lanham, fairy tales, snow white a tale of terror
Onions and the Color of Sigourney’s Hair
Skip ahead a few years and we learn that the child is our Snow White. Lilli, let’s call her. And what sort of fairytale would this be without a young girl, a desperately adored father, and a highly questionable new wife? Snow White: A Tale of Terror has all three, but in this case, I liked that the new wife seemed kind of nice, if not a bit peculiar. Lilli doesn’t want her father (Sam Neil) to remarry, of course, and she’s actually the difficult one in the beginning, making life miserable for the new step-mom, played to perfection by a slowly simmering Sigourney Weaver. Lilli quickly grows from a young black-haired, blue-eyed Taryn Davis into a teenage black-haired, blue-eyed Monica Keena, who shows up to an important party one night in her dead mother’s gown and unwittingly shocks her step-mother into giving birth to a stillborn son.
The step-mom flips her wig and decides that she wants Lilli dead. She feeds what she believes is Lilli’s heart to her husband and then paints her throat with some left over blood and dances gleefully around her bedroom while a search party hunts for the missing girl. It wasn’t the smoothest of transitions but I was still on board for the most part, admiring the enthusiastic way Sigourney chows on the heart meat, and wondering where I can get one of those flattering mirrors for myself. It’s the guys who form that group of miners formerly known as the seven dwarves who start to make me scratch my head. They aren’t very nice (Not to mention sneezy or happy) and most of them aren’t even small. But that isn’t my beef. What gets me is the way spunky Lilli suddenly can’t seem to find the wherewithal to break away from these guys, even following them into a mine when they go to work rather than trying to find her way back home, despite being almost raped by one of them and sneered at and mistreated by the rest of them. She is afraid of them and reviled by them and then, quick as you please, decides she likes them for no better reason than the fact that the script says she does. She especially likes the cute one who has a scar on his dirty, sulky face.
Sigourney Weaver got an Emmy nomination and a Screen Actors Guild nomination for her performance. The film got Emmy noms for Makeup and Costume Design. I can understand why on both counts. This was such a visually satisfying film that it was worth seeing, regardless of it’s problems. It’s cool and it’s fun and I’ve always hoped for the opportunity to watch it. It’s too bad the story is like biting into a pretty apple and finding out it’s made out of wax. If you like your fairytales gorgeous and creepy, you might want a bite all the same.Were the World Mine Reviewed
22 Jun 2011 1 Comment
in Fae Awareness Movies, Films, Reviews Tags: a midsummer night's dream, lgbtq cinema, musicals, shakespeare, sundance, tom gustafson, were the world mine
The inclusion of Were the World Mine in Fae Awareness Month might never have happened if not for the recommendation of publisher (see also: Dagan Books), editor, and author Carrie Cuinn over a couple of carbombs at her kitchen table one evening. I think we can all agree that we owe her some serious thanks. Hope you enjoyed last night’s movie — and if you haven’t watched it yet, allow her to convince you…
Were the World Mine
by Carrie Cuinn
Tom Gustafson’s low-budget, independent, gay musical, Were the World Mine, arrived in 2008, swathed in lace and glitter and hot boy-on-boy action. Interspersed with the traditional Shakespearean scenes, acted out on a prep-school stage, are musically-enhanced fantasies that are some of the best moments of the film. Even when the film’s fairies aren’t in costume, the boys are still by turns argumentative, mischievous, aggressive, and tricky. Exactly as the Bard would have wanted them to be. How does the play – and more importantly, the mischievous fairies – fare as a small-town tale of homophobia and love?
Beautifully.
A quick read of the play reveals that the film, though slightly out of order and with some actors playing characters who embody more than one of Shakespeare’s roles, the essence of Dream is presented in its entirety. The play has two main settings; the town, at the beginning and end, where the humans live in real life, is found in WTWM’s small town reality, where the film opens and to which it returns when it ends. Boys dressed as girls are a staple of traditional Elizabethan-style Shakespearian plays, and in this regard WTWM stays true, creating an all-boys school as the setting for it’s all-boy staging of the play within the film. The bulk of Dream is set in the “wood”, with various locales and “bowers”, and this can be seen in WTWM’s dream sequences, including actual woods. Just as Dream is presented as a mix of fairy magic, theater, and restless dreams, Were the World Mine is a musical, and so naturally features a few interludes of the sort where people start singing and dancing when this would otherwise seem insane. Luckily for us, Timothy doesn’t question these moments too strongly, and the lovely daydream sequences continue right up to the movie’s finale.
When Shakespeare’s play begins, the lovely Hermia is supposed to marry Demetrius, who she does not love, because tradition and her father demand it. The film begins with Jonathan, the star rugby player, dating a girl, fitting into his expected roles, and quietly eying the only gay boy in town. Instead of marrying Demetrius, Hermia runs off to the woods with Lysander, and if we can accept that Timothy is both Puck and in this moment Lysander too, then it makes sense when the smitten Jonathan runs off to the woods with Timothy to hide from an angry world. Demetrius follows, along with Helen who loves him. In one scene they are acted out by Jonathan’s girlfriend and her friend, who chase after the newly-coupled boys, and in another, Timothy’s friends Max and Frankie (a girl) fill their shoes. Puck is solely the purview of Timothy in the film, no matter how other roles may drift, for it is he who finds the love-flower spell, he who casts it, in his own sparkly closet “bower”, he who sprinkles the juice in future-lovers eyes, and he who begs forgiveness in the end. The Demetrius as Max parallel works again later with Frankie as Hermia in the scene where a potion-drenched Max has accidentally fallen in love with Timothy (here playing out Helen’s role) – Frankie accuses Timothy of stealing her love interest, when Timothy has no love for Max outside of friendship. Promising to correct his error, he leaves Max behind, but the play’s fight scene between Demetrius and Lysander appears, as Max battles Jonathan for the lover they both want – Timothy as Helen again, with both her suitors magically smitten.
If we accept that Gustafson seems to have simply switched the genders of all the major roles in the play, it is obvious that Oberon is personified by the enigmatic drama teacher, the only woman working at the school. It is she who gives Timothy the role as Puck, she who leads him to the potion, and she who has something to gain when Timothy’s spell enchants the locals. In the play Puck explains that Titania was doused as the acting troupe, “were met together to rehearse a play,” fitting because Timothy uses the potion while the students are rehearsing their version of Dream. When the homophobic rugby coach bursts in on the love-doused boys, he too is changed by Timothy’s potion. His eyes open upon who will be his love: the principle of the school. At that moment it becomes clear that the coach is Titania, and the principle is playing the part of the ass. Because of Titania’s infatuation with the woodland creature, she gives up her interest in the Indian Boy, whom Oberon desires. The drama teacher, too, desires something – the hearts and minds of the young male students – and in his lovelorn state, the coach, gives up his tight grip on them, even going so far as to support ballet movements in practice.
At the end of the film, just like at the end of the play, the dream ends with a happy audience released from its spell. The boys are allowed to perform their version of Dream, though we as viewers only see snippets, since we’ve already seen the play acted out as the movie up until that point. The one scene shown in its entirety is what the drama teacher calls, “an incredibly hip song,” a musical version of Dream’s own play within the play, Pyramus and Thisbe. Just as Hermia’s father is relieved to find the lover’s relationships satisfactorily sorted out, the schoolboy’s parents are relieved to find that, for the most part, they’ve gone back to being socially-acceptable heterosexuals. Lysander and Hermia are given permission to be together, just as Jonathan and Timothy find approval from their previously homophobic friends. Titania gives up her love for the ass, who’s allowed to return to his old life, just as the coach realizes he cannot chase the principle, who happily returns to the waiting arms of his wife.
The lyrics for most of the music were adapted from Shakespeare’s original text. Again, the powerful writing of the original play shines through its adaptation, even when WTWM is at its best. Jennifer Fogle crafted the numbers from her knowledge as arguably the most experienced member of the crew, since she’d produced, directed, and written musicals for the stage before working on the film. Interestingly enough, Fogle is the one person who shares space with Shakespeare in the credits. Her songs are not the only place that direct quotation appears; the title of the film, Were The World Mine, is taken from Helena’s conversation with Hermia in Act 1, Scene 1, wherein Helena says that if she had her way, Demetrius would love her instead. One of the most oft repeated lines in the film, “The course of true love never did run smooth,” also appears in the first scene of the play, yet neither language nor plot points from the play are apparently enough for Gustafson to credit Shakespeare with being anything more than an “inspiration.”
I enjoyed the movie, both for the very modern treatment of one of my favorite plays, and for the hot boys singing and dancing all over the screen. I mean, c’mon. Hot boys! Dancing! And there’s kissing! I like movies that are lighthearted and fun, even when the dialogue strays from time-tested poetry into campy retro attempts at courtship. (“I’m with the best fella in town”? Really?) The set design is gorgeous, while staying within the boundaries of what’s possible for a high school theater department. One of my favorite moments is when Timothy, adorned in silver face paint, serenades a sleeping Jonathan, bringing in the rugby team to do a ballet dance with pink balls and shiny boy shorts. Though Jonathan, upon waking, sings as well, his voice doesn’t have the strength of Timothy’s, but that works too, blending together to create the vocals the other fairies dance along with. And oh, the fairies dance! And rock! Another favorite scene comes at the end of the film, where we see the “Pyramus and Thisbe” play enacted as a hipster anthem. A rugby player, dressed as a fairy with bright orange dreadlocks, head-bangs pretty enthusiastically as Timothy’s friend Frankie sings the story.
In the end, all is put right again, and we’re left with a good two-hours worth of entertainment. I’d recommend this film to anyone who’s a fan of puckish sprites, Shakespeare, cute boys, or musicals.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Peter Hall, 1968)
21 Jun 2011 4 Comments
in Fae Awareness Movies, Films, Reviews Tags: a midsummer night's dream, fae awareness month, fairies, litha, oberon, puck, sam kelly, shakespeare, summer solstice, summer solstice 2011, titania
There’s one thing I particularly like about watching old films, and that’s the credits. Complete, slow enough to read, and at the beginning so we know who’s who to start with. And with this cast, there’s a lot of who’s who to remember.
To name only the highlights, we’ve got Judi Dench (M) as Titania; Helen Mirren (Queen Elizabeth I and II) as Hermia; Diana Rigg (Emma Peel) as Helena; Ian Richardson (Francis Urquhart) as Oberon; David Warner (Lord Downey) as Lysander; and Ian Holm (Bilbo Baggins) as Puck.
Adaptations of this play are usually set in some fantastical fairyland studio set, a glittering or louring magical wood, some evocation of the Wild Wood, the Forest Primaeval. This one isn’t; it’s filmed in a forest. An ordinary, un-tarted-up English forest, with an ordinary English village & country house near it. For me, that only increases its power: it’s a real place, like hundreds I’ve walked through, and that makes it a much rawer and less mediated experience. The film has the same undramatic magic as the English woodlands do.
The fairies, too, display a similar sort of wonderful undramatic magic. They appear and disappear without a fuss—did they blink out of existence, or were they moving too fast to see? Just where did they appear from while we glanced away? When Bottom tries to leave the forest (Out of this wood do not desire to go!), he runs every which way, but Titania is always in front of him, and in Act II, Scene 1 (if you want to check the scenes against the text, there’s a good and very usable copy here) Titania’s court stream in through flickers and jump-cuts like a Wild Hunt, or like a bacchanal riot—or like dozens of children in the woods at night, because that’s what they are. It’s often traditional to cast children as the fairies, for whatever allegedly child-like qualities you want to invoke, but it’s rare to see them actually behaving like real children, rather than a director’s child-like fairy ideal. Clare Dench, as the first fairy we see, is utterly enchanting as she stamps in a pond (drenching Puck) and listens to the stories he spins to make her laugh, and when Titania gathers her court around her to sing her to sleep she behaves more like an indulgent and adoring mother than an imperious queen. In fact, this episode reminded me strongly of Neverland, with Titania playing Wendy and the brave but hopelessly incompetent Cobweb standing guard while she sleeps. When Oberon goes to dose Titania with his magical herb, a minion distracts Cobweb with a branch upside the head; it makes a very comedic ‘clunk!’ sound. In fact, Puck seems to induce sound effects and similar cartoon tropes everywhere he goes, dashing off with a ‘whoosh!’ and returning panting like a labrador, and when he leads the four lovers around in the night and fog they become hopelessly infected with cartoonishness. (There’s textual evidence for it, mind you: Those things best please me that befall preposterously.) Holm’s an amazing non-verbal actor, and his bounding, anarchic, good-hearted Puck is a delight to watch. Puck is the sort of character it’s hard not to play to extremes, because he just works so well that way, but Holm shows a lot of restraint both in his mischief—mazing and wearying Lysander and Demetrius, but without bouncing around or showing off any Weird Shit—and his kindness, in telling tales for a fairy child, and putting Helena and Hermia to sleep with a kiss on the cheek.
Ian Richardson makes a good Oberon, clearly very manly in his body language, but not showing any performative masculinity at all. Titania shows an honest, uncomplicated sensuality, but (despite spending the entire film dressed in a half-dozen leaves) comes over as protective and motherly rather than at all sexual. Her wonderful speech in II.1 (ll.450-486) is strongly felt, passionate but not fierce, and for every moment of it she has her eyes fixed either on Oberon or to camera. There’s a lot of fourth-wall-breaking in this film; practically every soliloquy is delivered straight to us. Oberon, in an interesting contrast, spends most of his lines gazing off into the middle distance while green leaves wave behind him. Unlike many versions of this couple, there’s clearly real and genuine affection between them. I’m not sure how that chimes with Oberon slipping her a roofie and getting her screwed by a mortal, and she cries real tears when he shows her that her dream did happen after all, but hey. I’ve seen weirder relationships, and their kink is not my kink. Their subsequent dance is really sweet, a montage of kisses and hands sliding over hands, and they show visible affection in the final scene. When they’re together, there’s nothing courtly going on; this is a family, and it shows.
So much for the fairies; now, the mortals, and lord! what fools these mortals be.
Mirren makes an adorable, lively, giggling, gambolling, bouncing Helena, teasing Lysander when he tries to repudiate his love for her, and only switching to fury when they make fun of her height. Rigg’s Helena is quite a contrast, and not just because this film reverses the usual short-brunette/tall-blonde colour-matching. They play off each other really well, and you can quite believe that they spent their childhoods together. Warner’s Lysander, on the other hand, is simultaneously threatening and sleazy, flirting enough with Helena that his later declaration of love doesn’t surprise her; Demetrius is threatening and gormless. Theseus, on the other hand, is sleek and dark, and incapable of saying anything without making it sound extremely sinister, to the point where I had to double-check that he wasn’t played by Anthony Ainley or Roger Delgado. (He even has the little beard. He wasn’t, of course, but Michael Jayston, who plays Demetrius, was the Valeyard. Just so you know.)
The mechanicals are classic British working class, ranging from nice but thick (Snout) to Quince’s twinkle-eyed grandfatherly wide-boy, who reminds me of several tradesmen I’ve known, and Bottom’s lovable rogue, forever acting out to impress his mates. I can’t find a great deal to say about the mechanicals; they do the job well, and it’s a pleasure to watch, but there are no surprises. I’m always a bit irked by the play’s portrayal of some of the working classes as thick, but that’s 1960s Britain for you. Progressive in patches.
The actors certainly got realistically dishevelled after their time in the woods, with messy hair and huge splotches of real mud; this is not Hollywood dirt! The costuming was fairly eclectic, based on unremarkable 1960s clothing, but with a few touches to make it look Elizabethan (swords, cloaks), Athenian (Theseus’s natty wrinkled-polycotton-sheet and doily ensemble, and Hermia’s sandals) and generically warlike (Hippolyta’s leather minidress and boots). Bottom’s ass’s head is a typical product of fine British television engineering, from the same era that produced Basil Brush. The only other item that’s worth much of a mention is Lysander’s flowered shirt, and that can safely be classed under “eldritch abomination”. Let us never speak of it again.
Overall, this is a wonderful film, and I’m delighted to have had this opportunity to review it for you all! The only thing I’d take issue with is the ending. Holm’s delivery of Puck’s final speech really surprised me; it’s very fast and enthusiastic, as though Hall wanted to end the play on an emotional upbeat. I think I can see his reasoning, but I’m not convinced that was the right way to do it. Any thoughts, O my friends and fellow appreciators?
Return to the Ocean – Ondine and The Secret of Roan Inish
18 Jun 2011 3 Comments
in Reviews, Films, Fae Awareness Movies Tags: the secret of roan inish, selkies, ondine, selkie myths, mina kelly, tease
Return to the Ocean – Ondine and The Secret of Roan Inish
by Mina Kelly
It’s no secret that selkies are one of my favourite mythological creatures. Heck, my debut novella is a selkie romance. Selkie myths cluster around the UK, anywhere seal colonies can be found. They’re like local mermaids, except without the whole tail issue.
There’s only one really well known selkie myth: that if a man finds the seal skin of a selkie woman and hides it, the selkie must be his bride. In most stories the selkie settles down and starts a family, which proves her husband’s undoing; one of the children unknowingly lets slip the location of the seal skin. The selkie is sad to leave her children behind, but returns to the sea nevertheless. It’s essentially a variation on the swan maid myth.
There are other myths, less well known. For example, if a young woman cries seven tears in the sea a selkie man will come and shag her senseless. Well, that’s not how it’s normally phrased, but that’s the gist of it, anyway. Often the woman goes mad with desire and drowns in an attempt to find her selkie lover again. The MacCodrum clan of North Uist claim to be descended from selkies, though considering the ‘sign’ of being a selkie descendant is having webbed fingers and toes one does wonder whether there might have been a little inbreeding going on amongst the isolated islanders during those long, dark, Scottish nights…
More information about selkie legends can be found here.
There are more examples of Scottish selkie myth online than Irish, but it’s in Ireland that both Ondine and The Secret of Roan Inish are set. Roan Inish is set in the late forties, Ireland’s rural communities still recovering from the war. Ondine gives us a modern Ireland, fishermen coping with quotas and the lack of an AA in a town that clearly needs it. In both, it’s the intelligent pre-teen girl that steals the show. Even from Colin Farrell. Sorry, Ballykissangel, but the oily fisherman look is not your sexiest.
Annie, in Ondine, and Fiona, in Roan Inish, are bright but lonely girls. Raised in a tradition of storytelling that goes almost unchanged from Roan Inish to Ondine, the girls use myths to explain aspects of their lives and bring their families together. These aren’t curly-haired Hollywood moppets, though; blessed with intelligence borne of necessity and sarcasm borne of frustration they’re perfect viewpoint characters.
Ondine spreads its weight across three main characters: Annie, Syracuse and Ondine. Colin Farrell is grubby, grumpy and perfectly believable as a recovering alcoholic and fisherman. Alicja Bachleda brings a dark eyed exoticism and mercurial nature to the role of Ondine, keeping her friends close and her secrets closer. The couple have chemistry, probably because they were dating when the film was made. Syracuse’s past provides his motivation for not delving too deeply into Ondine’s, even though the amnesia excuse is pretty weak.
Though the romance is meant to make up the thrust of the plot, Annie’s battle with kidney failure is what keeps the movie actually moving. The painful realism of her disease and the way her peers treat her – it’s more thoughtless than malicious, but is still essentially bullying – counterpoint her dedication to the idea Ondine is a selkie. She’s old enough to know it ought to be just a story, but she clings to the idea long after the real world intrudes on their carefully constructed lives. For all her biting wit she remains very much a child.
In Ondine the selkie myth is treated as such, a sign of Annie’s childishness that the adults around her are willing to play along with to help her get through her illness, whereas Roan Inish is careful to avoid letting characters give their opinions on the stories woven through the main narrative. The one adult who openly admits to believing it is dismissed as simple, but no one actually contradicts him. Roan Inish takes its child protagonist seriously. Sure, she’s cute, but the film isn’t about her being cute. She’s intelligent, curious, and not afraid of hard work. It would be easy to dismiss this as a children’s film (I almost did when I saw the U BBFC rating – I think the only other DVDs I have at that rating are Tom & Jerry) but it’s realism gives it a much broader appeal than that. Though it lacks the grittiness of Ondine it doesn’t shy away from the political and social realities of 40s Ireland, land being bought up for the tourist trade as traditional crafts and ways of life are dying off.
The moment that made me fall in love with Fiona was one of beautiful direction: stood in the pub, just tall enough to see over the bar, Fiona waits patiently while the adults around her discuss her future. The perspective is that of a child, the adults all waists and chests and voices booming way above her. Fiona’s life is decided for her; she stays quiet, too tired to care.
Selkie stories usually focus on the plight of the mother, unable to deny her true nature and forced to leave her children. Fiona and Annie are children who’ve been left behind: Fiona by her mother’s death, Annie by her mother’s alcoholism. They’re drawn to selkie myths by their loneliness – who wouldn’t want to believe their mother (or mother-figure) was just on the other side of the waves?
Both films are powerful, and I’d be hard put to choose a favourite between them. I haven’t even started on the scenery, which is stunning in both of them: Ondine is fond of blue filters and dark oceans, while Roan Inish plays up the Emerald Isle with rolling green landscapes and warm open fires. Put some money aside for plane tickets before watching either film, is all I can say. Both films have some pretty strong accents to contend with, but both stand up to a re-watch, so you can catch anything you missed first time around.
There aren’t a lot of selkie-based films – mermaids tend to beat them when it comes to recognisable oceanic fae – but it just goes to show that those that are out there are very good indeed. Let’s show them a little support and see if it persuades anyone to make some more, shall we?
What is it about Tinkerbell?
14 Jun 2011 2 Comments
in Fae Awareness Movies, Films, Reviews Tags: across the veil, hook, lisa kessler, peter pan, tinkerbell
Today, in re last night’s film, Hook, we have author Lisa Kessler. We’ve been giving the sweeter side of the fae a little bit of flack, so they definitely need some defense–
Then again, Tink isn’t all that sweet, either. Take it, Lisa!
What is it about Tinkerbell?
by Lisa Kessler
Tinkerbell was my first introduction to the Fae. In spite of her non-speaking role in Disney’s Peter Pan, she became my favorite character. I loved her expressive face. She didn’t need to have a human voice to get her point across.
And she had pixie dust!
Tinkerbell is also one of my earliest memories of true magic. With her help, a happy thought could transform you and magically you could fly. Anything was possible as long as you believed.
Magic.
In 1991, my daughter was born. I slept less, worked more, paid bills, and felt like a real grown-up…
Thankfully, Hook came out that same year!
It had a great tagline… What if Peter Pan grew up?
In the movie, our wily Pan had grown into a timid accountant, and as he grew up he forgot his childhood in Neverland. He’d even forgotten his best friend, Tinkerbell.
The movie, Hook, did something very controversial at the time. They gave Tinkerbell a voice. Julia Roberts played the spunky faerie. I enjoyed her portrayal. I thought her bright smile radiated magic and balanced the over-the-top evil of Dustin Hoffman’s Captain Hook.
And when I saw that movie, it re-awakened the kid inside of me, and my love for magic. And pixie dust! 
I think Roald Dahl said it best – “Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
When did I stop believing?
As I writer, I enjoy toying with “what ifs”. What if the Fae lived among us, but we didn’t see them because we didn’t believe? What if they needed our faith to power their magic? If we slipped into Neverland, would we recognize the magic of our youth? Or would we be clumsy and weighted down by adult logic?
If you haven’t seen Hook before, or if it’s been a few years, rent it on Netflix or Amazon*. It’s well worth watching, and the magic still holds up even though it came out twenty years ago! (Ugh, that made me feel REALLY old! Yeek!)
After Disney released the animated, Peter Pan, Tinkerbell quickly became the symbol of “The Magic of Disney”. Before every film, she still flies over the castle, dousing it with pixie dust. And every time she does, on some level, we sit back in the theater and allow the magic to captivate us. We believe.
Faith trust and pixie dust… Magic!
Lisa has a new eBook Short Story available now. Across the Veil tells the story of Princess Talia from Summerland. Hiding across the veil in the human world for the past five years, she now stars in a hit television show as human actress, Natalie Thurmont.
But her charmed new life is shattered when the past comes knocking on her door.
*Ed note: All our Fae Awareness movies appear in the dropbox the night before at least: http://db.tt/x7Ir0U1. Please use it responsibly, for viewing purposes only!
