For this post, I will introduce something that is important from the film industry that is called "Genre". Now some of you might ask, "what the heck is a genre?" or probably never even heard of it. Genre is a form that categorize films or group different film types together to prevent confusion between different films. A theory that I have found from genre this topic itself is called the semantic/syntactic approach.
This approach includes Semantic, which is a list of common traits and attitudes, characters, shows, locations, sets, etc, bringing us very much to the visual aspects of the film; Syntactic, which consists of constitutive relationships between undesignated and variable placeholders, pulling us to very much the thematic aspects of the film. This approach is mostly use as a Genre Analysis and the use of the two components of the approach is essential as it go both ways.
There are 3 conditions for a film to process into a genre. Condition number 1, the film must possess general semantics and syntaxes that are particularly found in corresponding genres. Condition number 2, the genre of the film needs to be audience based, following the expectations of the industry. Condition number 3, genres itself exists as a paradox for being conservative and innovative at the same time, as long as they repeat "formulas" to display old conventions while modernizing new ones.
Now you have a brief idea what genre is, let's get back to the movie for this week :)
Coraline, a dark fantasy movie film based on a children's novel written by a British author, Neil Gailman. This movie is about a girl named Coraline, while exploring her new home, uncovers a small secret door, behind it lies an alternate world that resemblances her own, the only difference between the two world is that this alternate world seems to be better, at least that is what Coraline thinks of it.
She felt a surge of jubilation upon her discovery of the alternate world, until "Other Mother" aka The Beldam and the rest of Coraline's parallel family try to make her stay in the alternate world forever. Coraline needs to use all the resources she can find and the courage to go back to her own life with her original family.
From this film, I've captured 2 different genre which is Horror & Fantasy. Horror that involves supernatural beings and psychological sub genre. Evidence can be found in scenes such as the Other Mother got real pissed off when Coraline disrespected her by not apologizing for yelling at her, thus letting the Other Mother to transform into this weird, anorexic, monstrous look and drag her into a secret room through a mirror. In that secret room, lies a bed covered with blanket and in that blanket, there's something glowing inside it.
Coraline called out to it, the blanket then removed itself to reveal the lost souls of the ghost kids. The ghost kids explained themselves why they are being trapped in the secret room and how the Other Mother tricked them by giving them everything they want and let her sew buttons into their eyes, only to find out that everything was a lie and the Other Mother ate their physical body up. They also told Coraline to find their eyes back so that all of them can be set free and not trapped within the alternate world.
The director also adds in German Expressionism to further dwell deeper in the ambiance of horror in the film. German Expressionism is an artistic genre that originated in the Europe, and is broadly defined as the rejection of Western conventions, and the depiction of reality that is widely distorted for emotional effect ( Darsa, 2013). The settings for the film is usually dark, low-key lighting to keep the mysterious feeling and fear factor arousing in people's mind. Jump scares are also applied to jolt the audience when they least expect the expectation.
Fantasy genre in this film involve things such as imaginary world with some location, events or people from the real world. Evidence can be found in scenes such as Coraline discovered the magic tunnel through the small little door that links the real world to the alternate world. As Coraline steps into the alternate world, she discovered the Other Mother but with button eyes. She sends Coraline to find her Other Father at the garden outside as she prepares a feast.
Coraline leaves the house and venture out to the garden to look for her Other Father. Upon her arrival to the garden, the garden suddenly came to life in terms of the plants started to glow with different colors, even frogs illuminate lights and flying bugs can talk. Everything seems so surrealistic and magical to Coraline.
The Other Father with button eyes, sitting on a praying mantis look-a-like machine coming from the other side of the garden to save Coraline from being tickled by the strange plants. He then brings Coraline high up to the sky and let her see the whole garden which literally shaped like her face with all the plants glowing in and out with those various colors. This way of applying the genre brought the entire animation more lively and it captivates the attention of the audience more.
All in all, the director and the animator pulled off a successful effort on this movie, creating an animation that is unlike any other usual happy vibes cartoon. I would recommend this to those who expect a little bit of light and dark twisted elements in the movie.
This movie itself portrayed many different aspects of value, depending on how would you look at it. The obvious ones would be "not running of to places where you are not familiar as unknown danger lies ahead" and "appreciate your parents now before they are no longer here." For me personally, I would think that this movie goes way darker or deeper than just those values.
If carefully observed in another perspective, this movie relates to our society now. Coraline is like all of us, the innocent child who have the need to have luxury and attention; the alternate world represents the materialistic of the society, it has everything we want and we need, in the same time a trap that leads us to self-destruction of our own self worth and dignity.
Reference Links:
1)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327597/synopsis
2)https://news.artnet.com/market/art-house-an-introduction-to-german-expressionist-films-32845
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