WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE – Tumble in the jungle with your Wild Side.
Enter the eerie and uncomfortable habitat of the monsters which lurk in the half-settled mind of a frustrated child. Film-maker Spike Jonze adapted the award-winning children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are”, written and illustrated in 1963 by Brooklyn-born Maurice Sendak (1928), to produce this exquisitely filmed, strange and unconventional dream-like adventure. This tender story about a boy – Max – who struggles with the human plight of being ten, and is chased into the recesses of his own imagination by his anger with life, has received a big Thumbs Up from the original writer and illustrator – and from me!
After a fight with his mother one evening, Max bolts out of his front door and sails over a magical sea to join the monsters of his mind. On an imaginary island they make fires and throw each other around; they sleep in a big pile together in the forests, and wake up to throw with mud, tumble down dune landscapes, and argue continually. Here, Max convinces the monsters not to eat him, and acquires the dodgy status of ‘king’. He is then allowed to lead the “rumpus”, and be boss over the games they play. Funny, how they build immense and sophisticated structures out of twigs on beaches and in caves as if it were nothing, but are thoroughly preoccupied with their squeamish pretend-adult-like conversations which amount to very little.
Independent film-maker Spike Jonze (1969) has made countless music videos and two feature films – ‘Being John Malkovic’ (1999) and ‘Adaptation’ (2002). Both of these previous films are laced with a typical Jonze-ian weirdness – a quality he has successfully exploited for this production, taking the audience into an utterly private place where we may witness the stumbling, hapless dialogue about complicated feelings, as only a child would have in its own head. How can it be, that I felt so at home watching this movie? That this secret place is so recognizable, even to a child grown up, like myself?
There have been mixed feelings as to if this is a children’s film or not, so I took caution and “pre-watched” it, before taking my own kids to see it (they are rather young). Well, I walked out of the theatre sure that I will certainly take them! Why the caution? Well, perhaps because this is not a funny film; it follows no Disney-like prescribed formulas, with twin joke-characters accompanying the main actor everywhere he goes, lighting up the story-line with silly little pranks and one-liners to make those who ‘feel different’ about themselves cope better. We are not led by the hand past the milestones of conventional drama-escalation formatting, known from countless other ‘kids-genre’ films. Spike Jonze takes the chance of exposing the watcher to oddity, and to a non-pre stencilled wilderness, in a way I can appreciate.
Maurice Sendak has given Spike Jonze his blessing for this film, which gave the original story the greater playground it deserved. Perhaps Jonze was a child like Max, who lets Lego-men live in a bird’s nest on his desk. I was a child like that, maybe that is why I like it; and I like it very much.
To the left: one of the original drawings from Maurice Sendak’s 1963 book.
Note: I have just seen the film again with my children, and with other mothers and their children. We all loved it, all over again! This film really touched hearts today: we all came out of the theatre really moved. I realise for myself that there is a magnificent wild side in all children, (and in some mothers, too) and if it is given its rightful place, then it may feel safe enough to show itself. I think wildness is just energy, of a special, non-conformist kind. But: “all monsters need a mother”, as Max says to Carol in the film. I think he’s right.
I am very grateful to Spike Jonze for having made this special film, and to those who approve of it! – which shows I may not be so alone in my thoughts and feelings about this. Spike Jonze is an artist with means; he was able to bring deeper values to the big screen, unhindered by ideas about what is ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ in parenting, but by just following his own feeling. Thanks, Spike. I am going to buy your film – from a shop.
ACN
So, Amber so good that you pre-watched this movie and i am glad we can take the boys to see it.
The way you discribee the movies story gives me an urge to see it too.
Well, In my agenda I have written wednesday afternoon to see this movie with you and the boys.
Love Rosy.
I was a kid like that too so TOTALLY indentified with every single thing that happened in this movie. I do think an older child would enjoy the experience, one who is perhaps a bit more in tune to emotions and life’s struggles. My oldest is almost 8 and perhaps he is a bit too naieve, a bit too emotional. I think he would actually be frightened by the undercurrants of emotion. He doesn’t have enough life experiences to place it all in the right context and know that things will be alright in the end.
I had questioned why this movie was released outside of America because I wondered if people would “get” it. It is a book that almost every child in America grows up with so it becomes special on a whole other level. When I saw this movie, there were 2 other couples there – a young couple, probably familiar with Jonze’s other works and an art house snobby couple. The latter smirked throughout the entire film, ridiculing it. It broke my heart!But then I thought, hmm, they probably don’t have that immediate response to embrace it like I do, because they didn’t grow up with this book. Or they are just incredible snobs
Hello Amy, thank you for your great comment. I agree that the emotions that play such a heavy role in this film may be confusing to younger children. To me, it is not a funny film; it is not about the fun kids have, it is about adult-type emotions which the child lets run thru his head, but doesn’t quite ‘get’, and he is rambling in between rolling in the woods. I think that a younger child will overlook the bits he does not understand, and latch on to the feeling that he does. I was very guarded as to if I was going to take my kids, but I am sure that they can deal with a “children’s drama”. Life is not only fun in the movies. I love your reaction – take care.
I liked the part that all the wild things said to Max how good they could jump, and then they jumped very high and then one of the wild things jumped against a tree and the he knocked his head and then said to the tree “I’ll get you back later, tree.”
That is what I found funny.
Joel
The movie is very different from the book, It’s quite wierd in a way. I liked Bob and Terry, the owels. The wild things can be scarry at times. I liked it very much. It was sad and funny and thrilling. I was sad when Max left the monsters. Bob and Terry were funny because they only squawked instead of talking and everyone could understand them except Max and Carol. The way the monsters could jump super high looked funny too. They had funny voices like people but looked different from people but yet they looked like the monsters in the book and looked like people in Maxes life. It was thrilling when the wild things were mad. They would do scary things with their eyes and teeth and chase each other and hurt each other. They would throw dirt and one got hurt on the head. They would growl and make you uncomfortable to be around them. Kids under the age of 6 should not watch it.
Actually that was Elizabeth’s comment above! I just typed it for her!
Yes! I can see that! Erin Elizabeth is nine years old. Thanks for thinking about the under-six age group, Erin! And thank you for your super lovely comment, which I think is very fitting.
Best wishes, Amber.
I liked the film very much and I like Bob and Terry the most, even if they only one time came in the film. I was scared because the sea was very rough. And what I liked about the kitty cat is that the monster was stroking it in his arms. And I liked the dog on the dunes because it was so fluffy and the wind was blowing so it made his fur stand out.
Nemo 8 years old.