HOWLING with THE WILD THINGS this HALLOWEEN

(originally posted on Craig’s blog on the Purple State of Mind website)

I have a couple of wild things at my house.  They are capable of some beastly behavior.  There has been clawing, scratching and even biting on occasion.   Moods swing wildly, careening over the smallest of misplaced toys or way laid plans.   Melancholy can set in over a glance, a gesture, or a phrase.   It can take hours to return to normal.  Or a sudden breeze can blow an infectious smile our way.

I know a bit about where the wild things are.   More than I knew a decade ago.   As a newlywed, I remembered some wild days, crazy nights, and even lost weekends.   But now, as a parent, I recognize how wild things bloom and grow.   One of my wild things plans to dress up as a fruit bat this Halloween.   You may also know fruit bats as flying foxes.  They hang from trees in Australia and swoop above cities like Sydney and Cairns at sundown.    Ours will be scouring the neighborhood in search of Skittles this Saturday night.  How great to have Where the Wild Things Are howling this Halloween.

Spike Jonze and his ace cinematographer Lance Acord shot Where the Wild Things Are in Australia, outside Melbourne.  The stark vistas, blinding sand dunes, and endless ocean are all there.   No digital enhancements necessary.   Some may question whether Spike jonze’s Wild Things are appropriate for children.  They probably asked Maurice Sendak similar questions when his book arrived in 1963.   If you don’t have a wild thing in your house, then you may have forgotten what it is like.  If you’re trying to tame your wild thing, good luck.  As the movie demonstrates, they are quite mercurial, alternating between warm and fuzzy pile-ons and dangerous right hooks.   They may rip your arm off when you least expect it.  They definitely have the ability to injure.

Max is having a rough go of it at home.  Dad seems to be out of the picture, Mom seems to be at work, and sister is 13 going on 23.   So what is a wild thing to do?   A faraway island seems like an appropriate refuge, even with the owls and raccoons and yaks that may roam in the land.   Max finds Carol on a rampage.  It is not clear why Carol feels the need to tear down everything his community has constructed.  But sometimes we rip up things that we later regret.

The Wild Things are full of regret.  Hair trigger tempers get them in trouble.  As long as they’re focused on a project, things go well.  But leave them with too much free time on their hands, and somebody is bound to get cranky.  Judith appears to hold the biggest grudges (and have the stickiest tongue).  Alexander the Goat is also rather thin skinned.   Ira is good at creating holes.  But without a job, he could also create problems.   K.W. appears to have feelings for Carol.  Or at least used to.   They may have been best friends in the past.  They may not know why they had a falling out.   But their relationship has never been the same.   And Max has no power to heal their breach.

Where the Wild Things Are allows a boy to experience what its like to be king.  Of course, many boys and girls believe the world is theirs.  It is tough to discover it is not.   Where the Wild Things Are is about faith, the stories we tell each other, the claims we make (that often can’t be realized).    The Wild Things come to realize Max is not a king.      That can be important lesson to learn.   Carol therefore concludes there is no such thing as a king.   As a theist, I don’t think that is true about the universe.

Plenty of commentators have called the wild things (and Max) depressed, mopey, and even sullen.   My partner at Purple State seems to have exited the theater with a fair amount of ennui.    While this is true, the Wild Things down beat times are preceded by the vigorous tossing of dirt clods.   Hurt feelings often follow battles, no matter what is flying through the air.    The core truth forwarded by the wild things:  Being a family is hard.   No more.  No less.

My wild things would agree.  We have transcendent moments of togetherness.  We have horrific moments of disappointment usually in the same afternoon.    Spike Jonze represents the best of Gen X filmmaking.   Like Wes Anderson, he may be more concerned about how things looks and sound, than with how the audience is feeling.    They are part of a generation raised in broken homes, with working parents, where solace was found in a game or a book or a show.   Their films reflect the melancholy they experienced interpersonally.   Their films reflect the comfort found in the right pop cultural artifact.  I don’t think that means they’re fixated on stuff.   Their prolonged adolescence wasn’t by choice.    It was thrust upon them.   And music and movies have provided a way out and about.

I love the Wild Things soundtrack.   It is great to hear Karen O’s otherworldly caterwaul dialed down to childlike innocent.   Her cover of Daniel Johnston’s “Worry Shoes” makes perfect sense.  He is the most childlike of singers, locked into a kind of permanent adolescence (at best).

Spike Jonze’s decision to go with real furry creatures is fabulous.  This is the Sid and Marty Kroft adventure that the Land of the Lost feature didn’t even attempt to replicate.   It brims with imagination.   Two very little kids were sitting behind me in the theater.   Their mother made a minimal effort to contain them.  They crawled over and around their seats.  They wandered to the end of the aisle.   But when Max and Carol howled at each other, the kids howled back.     They were in that place, that sacred place, where anything is possible.   It wasn’t too scary.  It wasn’t necessary make believe.  It felt utterly real.   Instant cinematic classics make you want to howl in appreciation and delight.