Coraline (2009)
Country: US
Technical: bw/col 100m
Director: Henry Selick
Cast: Voicecast: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Ian McShane
Synopsis:
When her family moves to a gothic pink mansion of apartments, the daughter takes badly to her eccentric new surroundings and her parents' preoccupation with their work. Easy prey, then, to a malevolent spirit who lures unsuspecting souls in their sleep to a reflected world where all is sweetness and colour, except that its denizens have buttons in place of their eyes.
Review:
Decidedly odd, from its title sequence of a needle-fingered hand re-fashioning worn out dolls, this mixture of model work and drawn animation mines similar territory to its creator's A Nightmare before Christmas, in finding the macabre in the everyday. It proved too dark for family audiences and so fell between two stools; indeed, there are elements of Being John Malkovich in the idea of a portal between the two realms, while the film's central character is undoubtedly a teenage construct. Handsomely realized but a shade over-extended: we could have done without some of the performing mice and fat ladies, perhaps.
Country: US
Technical: bw/col 100m
Director: Henry Selick
Cast: Voicecast: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Ian McShane
Synopsis:
When her family moves to a gothic pink mansion of apartments, the daughter takes badly to her eccentric new surroundings and her parents' preoccupation with their work. Easy prey, then, to a malevolent spirit who lures unsuspecting souls in their sleep to a reflected world where all is sweetness and colour, except that its denizens have buttons in place of their eyes.
Review:
Decidedly odd, from its title sequence of a needle-fingered hand re-fashioning worn out dolls, this mixture of model work and drawn animation mines similar territory to its creator's A Nightmare before Christmas, in finding the macabre in the everyday. It proved too dark for family audiences and so fell between two stools; indeed, there are elements of Being John Malkovich in the idea of a portal between the two realms, while the film's central character is undoubtedly a teenage construct. Handsomely realized but a shade over-extended: we could have done without some of the performing mice and fat ladies, perhaps.
Country: US
Technical: bw/col 100m
Director: Henry Selick
Cast: Voicecast: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Ian McShane
Synopsis:
When her family moves to a gothic pink mansion of apartments, the daughter takes badly to her eccentric new surroundings and her parents' preoccupation with their work. Easy prey, then, to a malevolent spirit who lures unsuspecting souls in their sleep to a reflected world where all is sweetness and colour, except that its denizens have buttons in place of their eyes.
Review:
Decidedly odd, from its title sequence of a needle-fingered hand re-fashioning worn out dolls, this mixture of model work and drawn animation mines similar territory to its creator's A Nightmare before Christmas, in finding the macabre in the everyday. It proved too dark for family audiences and so fell between two stools; indeed, there are elements of Being John Malkovich in the idea of a portal between the two realms, while the film's central character is undoubtedly a teenage construct. Handsomely realized but a shade over-extended: we could have done without some of the performing mice and fat ladies, perhaps.