Monday, October 26, 2009
Where sadness roams
To cope with such cruel punishment, the boy escapes into the depth of his imagination, where he is free to misbehave and even gets rewarded for acting wild and crazy by being made a king of the wild things.
The new Spike Jonze's film expands on this story, taking it to another, sadder, dimension. The film chronicles Max’s film adventures in a way that projects his yearning for a wholesome family unit, where everyone is equally happy and free of stress. Thus, he embarks on a poignant journey of confusing childhood emotions to a land where unhappy wild things roam. At first, the monsters are cautious towards the new creature amongst them and even want to eat Max.
Max sympathizes with the poor depressed creatures and attempts to cheer them up with the aid of his imagination. Delighted, they crown him a king and genuinely believe in his power to lead them to happiness. Thus, they gladly follow Max’s instructions and build a beautiful new home, where everyone could be happy and would sleep in a big pile together.
Albeit, the happy moments of Max’s reign as the new king of the wild kingdom are short lived, and the monsters get sad again. This time, Max cannot come up with a way to make them happy and the wild things realize that he has no super powers and is just a little boy, who promised to protect them from loneliness, but could not shield them from sadness. Although they had eaten all of their previous kings who failed to fulfill their duty, the wild things decide to let Max go. By then, Max is eager to leave the carefree island, where wild things cannot overcome their issues of sadness. He finally realizes that it may not be such a bad thing to just be a human boy instead of being a wild and crazy little thing. Consequently, Max returns to reality, where he is rewarded with a great supper.
Jonze’s film is a well fashioned and valid version of the original story. Only, I wish it was happier. Nonetheless, with its fantastical set design and moster costumers, the film is well worth seeing on the big screen.
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