Spoilers ahead ₊✩‧₊˚꩜｡˚₊✩‧₊
We all know Coraline. This unique stop-motion movie that may have traumatised kids or have sparkled in them a far new fascination for horror that grew with them years later. I was the latter one of course. Because of its unique whimsical yet dark universe, that movie would forever have a special place in my heart and my every year halloween comfort movie.
I’ll be diving into what makes the movies so loving.
Rewatching it each time hit harder, the storytelling and the visuals are so on point, blending perfectly the beauty with horror really making it almost like a dark fantasy fairy tale. I still remember the first time the movie starts to play, the way the Other Mother hands sewed the doll, and really we were already introduced to its universe: the eeriness of the needles, the uneasiness of the doll, and the song—which did you know that it was sung with gibberish lyrics with no meaning? Studio Laika had really nailed the foreign yet nostalgic vibes.
And I had realized just how I grew a huge fondness for girls with stripped patterns on their clothes that is exploring another world. (I am now talking about Alice in wonderland, Fran Bow, Frisk, even little misfortune and so on) Coraline is a little girl that feels so realistic and relatable. Despite being reckless and sometimes even rude, deep down, she is just a lonely child whose emotional needs aren’t heard and met. She really inspired me to be brave and curious around my world. I think that flawed characters should be more portrayed in the media. Wybie, who wasn’t in the novel, sincerely gave a nice touch in the movie too and really reminds me of one of my childhood friends. And the three neighbors of Coraline, even if their interactions were short, were enough to make me love the characters. Sergei Alexander Bobinsky’s character design is insane with his medal designating for the liquidors of the Chernobyl disaster and his blue skin indicating a sign of silver poison. His lore deserves on his own a whole article and shows just how much details were thought about in the movie. On the other hand, Miss Forcible and Miss Spink were hilarious and what’s more wonderful is that they are a married couple!
While for some, Coraline might just be a nightmarish fuelling movie. There are actually beautiful messages and themes. We could talk about something like “do not trust strangers,” but I’ve realized through many peoples’ feeds that it may be more profound than that. I had read somewhere that Coraline for them even feels like a coming of age story in a sense which is super interesting. Every child goes through a developmental stage where they realize that they aren’t the only one living their life and other people have life too. And as a child, they are often self-oriented and they would need to accept that the world is not spinning around them and find love and beauty within the flaws. And I’ve read it somewhere which I agree wholeheartedly that Coraline is all about perspective. From the beginning, the world is portrayed as gray and from the moment she was describing the house it illustrates just how Coraline is seeing her world: boring. “One boring blue boy and a painfully boring painting.” From symbolisms like the button eyes, the ghost eyes, the triangle stone, the readings from Miss Forcible and Miss Spink and so on. She had to take different lenses to see the world around her during her journey. To the end, when she defeated the Beldam and returned to her original world which we would have expected credits and honorations which is typical in a children movie, nothing really happened. Her parents forgot it all and nothing really changes in her life except Coraline’s perspective. The shot of her house is nearly the same as the beginning as the end, but her view on life changes. She saw other people as individuals and embraced and respected each and everyone’s needs and differences. And just by the ability of changing her perspective that makes her world change for the better.
Anyways, Coraline is really one of the rare movie adaptations that is as good as the book.
