Coraline Review

If there is any film that cements one of my older posts about animation being not only for children (found here), it is Henry Selick's Coraline, a dark, stop-motion 3D animated film released in 2009. In the film, Coraline is a young girl who moves to a new, secluded house, bring her loneliness and through that, boredom. When she finds a door in her house that leads to an alternate version of her world, including improved versions of her parents and neighbours, everything seems perfect. That is, however, until she discovers the dark secrets that this alternate world holds and has to fight to get back what she realises she really loves.

Selick has proved that he is a master of animation, presenting us with wonderful The Nightmare before Christmas back in 1993, and his experience in the field is shown, with the dark and mysterious world in which Coraline lives being eerily intriguing to the viewer. The film is extremely self aware, also, playing around with the possibilities of animation in terms of creating and erasing the world in which the characters are exploring. The numerous shots of characters against blank white backgrounds shows us as an audience just how much work goes in to creating every little detail, and allows us to appreciate the art and the artists involved as we return to the stylised backgrounds of the 'other' world.

Through the films focus on Coraline as a lead character, we get to know her extremely well. Constantly misinterpreted, from her blue hair, her unique sense of style and her being frequently called Caroline by almost everyone, we feel sympathy towards the character, almost finding happiness in the way she is treated in the other world. With Coraline entering the other world and discovering that everything she could ever want is there, as an audience, we are instantly suspicious of this new world and suspect almost instantly that it holds danger, and we aren't wrong.

The villain is awesome, the story is awesome and the art is even more awesome. Derived from a graphic novel of the same name, Coraline, is a beautifully haunting portrayal of what can happen when the dark side of our imaginations are let loose.

With the dark themes and the even darker characters, Coraline would have scared the life out of me as a child. As an adult, I was able to appreciate the visionary genius of Henry Selick's directing and uniqueness of this animated feature compared to almost any other film I've seen. Selick is definitely a director to watch, with his latest feature The Shadow King in pre-production, it could be several years before a new film is released, however, I am confident it will be worth the wait.