| Dec122009 | Where The Wild Things Are |
I’m very late in seeing this movie. I loved the trailer. You see, the trailer shows a little boy discovering a far away land of imagination and adventure and there’s this super uplifting Arcade Fire track to underline it all. It’s like a fantastical journey and it makes you wish you were a child again because back then anything was possible and it was all brilliant and amazing.
The actual movie? Wow. What a rude awakening. Right away, you’re slapped in the face. The opening scene is Max in his wolf suit screaming like a animal and chasing after his dog. The next couple of scenes show how Max is this angry, destructive kid that just wants attention but seems to only get hurt. It’s painful and hard to watch this kid get hurt and hurt the people around him. And it only gets more painful.
He ends up in the land of the Wild Things and these creatures, being figments of Max’s imagination, are just as flawed as he is. They’re children that don’t understand their strength and they continue to hurt each other through misguided social interaction. In his thirst for attention and power, Max becomes their king and the pattern continues: things are fun until somebody gets hurt and then all these raw feelings come up.
This film pulls you in to the disturbed psyche of an angry little boy. It constantly walks that line where everything is fun but we’re always an inch away from somebody getting hurt. Tumbling through the forest and throwing dirt at each other, everyone is laughing and playing but as the audience you just sit there and wait for it to all go to shit. It’s an incredibly challenging film to watch.
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