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Coraline

Multi-dimensional morality tale

CORALINE
Director: Henry Selick
Certificate: PG. 100 minutes

When 11-year-old Coraline and her over-worked parents move into a grim apartment in a spooky old house, she is extremely downcast. Her surroundings are grey, the neighbours are weird and her parents are preoccupied with work. So Coraline explores. She’s intrigued when she discovers a small, papered-over door, but is disappointed when it opens onto just bricks.

That night, however, a mouse leads her through the door, down a tunnel and into what appears to be an ideal version of her own world. Everything there is cheerful and fun, including her ‘other parents’. Her Other Mother is kind, attentive and loving. And she has buttons for eyes.

Based on the book by Neil Gaiman, Coraline is a beautifully made, captivating stop-motion animation film. Like The Nightmare Before Christmas, it is directed by Henry Selick, and shares the same gothic horror atmosphere and gleeful creepiness. This is a scary story, one which older children will revel in, but not one for the sensitive.

The tale becomes increasingly dark as Coraline discovers that the other world is very far from being a dream come true. The price of staying there is to sow buttons over her eyes, and when she refuses, the frightening reality of the parallel world reveals itself.

While the film will not be to everyone’s taste (and there are a couple of instances of blasphemy), it is a potent morality tale about temptation and evil. Coraline feels, understandably, that her life is not what it should be. She is naturally drawn to the possibility of a world which offers everything her real life does not.

Costing our desires

But there is that price to pay. Is it worth it to have everything her heart desires, especially the love of her parents? ‘Soon you’ll see things our way’, insists her Other Mother. This is the problem, though. Coraline realises that embracing the supposedly ideal world means looking at everything wrongly. It means viewing deception as truth, and truth as irrelevant.

The real world and her real parents may be far from perfect, but at least they’re authentic. When she views reality rightly, she understands that contentment depends in large part on her attitude.

She learns that there are no shortcuts to satisfaction; rather they lead to enslavement and misery. All temptations are the same, promising happiness, but delivering only bondage because they are the enticements of Satan himself.

Tony Watkins,
Managing Editor
http://www.culturewatch.org