Coraline came out some time ago, but I was watching it again recently and decided to quickly jot down these thoughts that I’ve had for some time now.
Film critics love to insult a movie by suggesting it’s ‘like a video game’. I will (in this post, anyway) stay away from everything that’s wrong with that sentiment. But what if, rather than imitating the ethos of an action video game, a film was formally put together like one?
(Erm, spoilers ahead? I mean, Coraline is a kids film, so you know how it all pans out. But it’s so good – if you haven’t seen it, maybe you want to go in surprised?)
See, before I saw Coraline, my friend emailed me a note with that exact sentiment: “You should see it, Nav. It’s the first film I’ve seen structured like a video game”. I didn’t quite know what he meant – but it certainly intrigued me.
When I saw the film, I understood. There are two worlds in the film; one is a copy of the other, but both full of slippages and also glimmers of how it all, at any moment, might fall apart. This other world is sustained by a set of rules, an it is structured so as to entice Coraline to move through it.
The other world becomes a place where a quest must be played out. What does our heroine have to do to succeed? She must collect glowing red orbs.
Most interesting to me, however, is the following: Coraline is beckoned into the other world by a Coraline doll – a copy of herself that is both like her and not like her. It is the copied self – the avatar – that becomes the linkage between this world and that other one.
It is Coraline’s avatar that links her to the virtualised version of her life.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think there’s something neat about that.
(Though I should note, I don’t think it’s quite as neat as the film’s completely delightful soundtrack.)
