This Weekend’s Film Festival - Girls and Fantasy

Little girls are to fantasy like princesses are to princes. Classically, they go hand in hand. With Henry Selick’s delightful CORALINE now on DVD, This Weekend’s Film Festival looks at the connection between little girls and fantasy. Coraline joins a host of classic girls and their fantasy worlds. Those three are joined by girls who bring fantasy to their worlds.

CORALINE tells the tale of a little girl who wants more from the world than it’s giving her. As I said in my original review, “Coraline is a little Veruca Salt lost in Alice’s Other World, who in the end wishes for the same wish as Dorothy.” In her new apartment in the woods, she finds a little door to an Other World, where her Other Mother and Other Father have button eyes and treat her just like she dreamed to be treated. In this Other World, all her dreams come true, but there is something rotten underneath the shiny surface and soon the glimmer fades. CORALINE’s stop-motion animation along with wonderful production and character design create a skewed world that matches this dark fantasy perfectly.

The title character of Louis Carroll’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND is one of the most famous girls of fantasy. Brought to life via the animation wizards at Walt Disney, Wonderland has never been sillier. As I said in my original review, “Mary Blair’s amazing design work adds a surreal and often spooky quality to the Wonderland world.” But that’s the point isn’t it? Little Alice is a daydreamer who indulges a bit of silliness from time to time during her studies. But how does she react when an entire world is made up of nonsense? Through her run-ins with the Mad Hatter and his un-birthday party to the grinning Cheshire Cat or the hypocritical Queen of Hearts, she learns a valuable lesson in how logic isn’t a bad thing once in awhile. Much like CORALINE’s other world, Wonderland is a place for Alice to escape to from the real world, but it turns out that it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. Both tales use fantasy as a reminder that our lives are not as bad as they might seem.

That can also be said another classic girl of fantasy, Dorothy. In THE WIZARD OF OZ, Ms. Gale learns that there is no place like home. But in Walter Murch’s underrated RETURN TO OZ, fantasy and imagination are supported. After returning to Kansas, Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) can’t stop talking about Oz. So Aunt Em (Piper Laurie) takes her to see a doctor who will electro-shock Oz out of her mind. But when she escapes from the hospital, she ends up back in Oz, but it’s not like she remembered it. The Emerald City is in ruins and it is ruled over by the stone Nome King (Nicol Williamson) and the headless princess Mombi (Jean Marsh), who resemble the doctor and nurse from the real world. The villains in this darker tale from Oz want to rid everyone of the memory of what Oz use to be. But Dorothy brings life to companions like the robot soldier Tik-Tok, the new scarecrow Jack Pumpkinhead and the flying couch with a mouse head named Gump. As I said in my original review, “At the end, she learns an important lesson about the difference between the real world and fantasy. We learn a lesson about the importance of imagination in young children.”

Violet is the oldest of the Baudelaire children in LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS. She, played by Emily Browning, is a brilliant inventor. Her brother Klaus (Liam Aiken) has a photographic memory. Their baby sister Sunny can bite through about anything. When their parents die, they are shuffled between various odd relatives. They all seem to live in a dark fantastic version of the real world. Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) is a wannabe actor who only wants their money. Uncle Monty (Billy Connolly) is an adventurous reptile hunter. Their Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep) is not adventurous at all, frankly she’s paranoid of everything, but the way she lives, one might understand why she fears leaving the house. As I said in my original review, “The film to me felt like if BEETLEJUICE met THE WIZARD OF OZ mixed with a bit of the mystery and magic of HARRY POTTER.” This subversive family tale makes Violet grow up to quickly and deal with the many ways adults can warp children’s lives even when their intentions are good.

Closing this week’s lineup is another animated film. Hayao Miyzaki’s KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE follows Kiki, a 13-year-old witch in training who must leave home and find a witch-less city to serve. When she finds her new home, she sets up a delivery service using her broom and black cat best friend Jiji as her guide. This charming coming of age story deals with issues of being different and not feeling like one fits in. Ironically the differences between Kiki and the spoiled girls in town are what make her so many friends, especially to the aeronautics-obsessed boy Tombo. “As often is the case, Kiki doubts herself because of the other kids her age. But look what her independence and originality bring her in the end,” to quote my original review. Like Miyazaki’s SPIRITED AWAY, imagination and magic play a big role in the life of a young kind girl. But unlike many of the other films in this lineup, fantasy doesn’t change the girls; the girls change their worlds with their magic.

To get a dose of this magic just head to the videostore, update the Netflix queue, check out HelloMovies.com to see where they are streaming, visit Zap2It.com for TV listings, or help support the site by buying the films on DVD or Blu-ray at the links below.