A "Wizard of Oz"-like tale, tailor-made for the 2000s...

Rating: 8/10 (25 December 2019)

Adapted from Neil Gaiman's book of the same name, Henry Selick's "Coraline" isn't a movie I would let my 6-year old daughter watch but it's only a matter of a few years as the film is certainly relevant for an audience over the age of 10. It is also entertaining, spectacular and dark and disturbing, a little less than "Pan's Labyrinth" but a little more than "Pinocchio".
This is a story about a pre-teen girl who feels (more than she is) neglected by her parents; not because they belong to the abusive sort but because they're all intensely absorbed by their personal project of making a garden catalogue and all their petty adult preoccupations regarding their new life in "Rose Palace", Oregon. The moral comfort of their daughter isn't the least of their concerns but surely any child would love to live near a forest with colorful and eccentric European artists as neighbors and in a house looking like the setting of a Scooby-Doo episode.
But Coraline isn't like any child... the titular heroine isn't a model of extraversion, nor is she your typical shy, insecure little girl who needs the presence of an imaginary friend to feel valuable or to make up for the lack of parental love. Coraline doesn't try to be pleasant, she's a self-centered, strong-willed girl who doesn't care about befriending the well-meaning house owner's grandson "Wybie" just because he's the only child around. In all this unpleasantness, it comes down to her most infantile trait being the most universal one: curiosity. Coraline is intrigued and fascinated by mysterious traps and doors, including one that opens on a bricked wall.
It is a well-known trope of many fantasy stories, the portal that leads to a different world materializing as a tornado in "The Wizard of Oz", a rabbit hole in "Alice in Wonderland" or a wardrobe in "Chronicles of Narnia"... like Alice, Dorothy or Wendy Darling, there's a predisposition in Coraline to envision a better world lying somewhere. And so we understand the stylistic choices of the opening sequence, all in depressing colors and autumnal mood to better highlight the contrast with the other world, like the sepia used for the Kansas part in "Oz". The film is told from Coraline's perspective and it's interesting how the atmosphere reflects her mood in a binary way, she enjoys the color and reject the boring grey, like a normal child would do.
The film has another similarity with "Oz", which is the presence of doubles for each character except for Coraline and a mysterious cat. It starts with an opening sequence involving the meticulous fabrication of a doll with hands that evoke needles and puncture. The making of a doll starts with the symbolic death of the first one emptied from her content, as if there was no possible form of life and pleasure without a necessary sacrifice to make. And with Bruno Coulais' haunting music, we suspect some creepy undertones behind the pleasantness of the doll that looks like Coraline.
And so many questions come to mind: does the hand belong to an omnipotent God-like figure? a villain? is the doll a friend? whatever purpose this opening sequence carries takes its full meaning once we know who possesses these needle-like hands. Of course, some would make the immediate connection with Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands" and the film came from the director of "Nightmare Before Christmas" whose idea originated from Burton. Henry Selick remains the unsung hero of an oeuvre that has so many Burton vibes his name was only known by movie lovers. But let's get back to "Coraline".
I guess there are two dimensions of appreciation : first it's a movie about a dream any child could have, better parents, living in a beautiful world full of fun and amusement. And the film follows the plotline of many tales like Pinocchio when children discover at their own expenses that for every dream, there's a price to pay. Discovering the other world through the portal, Coraline sees better versions of her parents, gentler, funnier, more dedicated to her wishes. The catch is that they are all doll-like figures with buttons instead of eyes, what starts as a cute little gimmick turns into a creepy and lifeless vision of "forced" beatitude.
So we get the other side of the coin, and the real coming-to-age aspect of the story is when the heroine understands that she better accepts her own people with their flaws than the so-called idealized vision, it's the usual "there's no place like home" with a subtitle for 2000's audience: "beware what you wish for.
Coming of age is the reason why this movie works more for children, just watch the different travels Coraline makes: first she bumps into the ideal world where she sees better versions of her parents and her neighbors, it's accidental. Then it's deliberate, she wants to have fun and has the time of her life admiring the circus, the ballet and musical numbers that remind of Disney extravaganza. After that; she understands the price she has to pay for the ideal world, which means abandoning a precious capability : to see things for real... later, she has to get back to save her parents. In four travels Coraline grows up and learns more about life and herself and becomes altruistic and mature.
This a wonderful evolution of character in the same vein than "Pan's Labyrinth" and all the classic tales I mentioned, one that teaches kids about the limits of imagination and idealization and where dolls are both attractive and creepy. Horror, fantasy, and fairy tale magnificently blend in Selick's film, a wonder of animation that proves how stop motion is such an underrated genre of animation, the same year than "Mary and Max", another movie about a child looking for a meaning to her daily life... until finding a meaning to life itself.