A-Level Film Studies Enrolment task
What was your favourite film this summer 2018? (500 word ‘personal response’)
The film that I enjoyed watching over the summer was the 2009
film ‘Coraline’, directed by Henry Selick and is an adaptation of the book of
the same name by Neil Gaiman. This film is one of my all-time favourite films
because it was brought to life on screen using stop motion animation which
gives the film a unique art style and adds to the creepy, unsettling atmosphere
of the film. 
The first
scene of the film could be classed as a flashback, and this scene portrays an
unknown ‘entity’, with sewing needles for hands, deconstructing a plush doll
and reforming it to have the appearance of the protagonist (Coraline Jones),
which is unsettling to watch because the ‘entity’ remains faceless throughout
the whole scene which makes you unsure of its true intentions with our
protagonist. Another way this scene is unsettling is that the sewing equipment
and the backgrounds are covered in cobwebs, which could be playing off one of
the most common phobias-arachnophobia to make the audience who suffer from this
phobia more unsettled. As the scene carries on the ‘entity’ hums a playful
little tune which could suggest that she is enjoying making the doll, which we
later learn that these dolls are a key ‘ingredient’ in luring the children to
her world, and even this early in the film that little hum cements the feeling
that this character is pure evil.
Another
scene in the film is a scene that perfectly captures the atmosphere of the real
world of the movie because all of the colours are a muted shade of grey to
depict that this world is boring and lifeless which is directly juxtaposed with
a later scene when Coraline discovers the other world, that has been created by
the other mother (the Bell Dam), because all of the colours are now bright and
warm, a child’s representation of a perfect world. Another contrast between the
two worlds and scenes is that in the real world Coraline’s parents are
portrayed as distant and that they pay more attention to their work than they
do her, also they look physically drooped to create the feeling that they are
miserable with their current lives, whereas in the other world, the parents are
the complete opposite of their real world counterparts as they appear to be
physically and mentally happier and healthier, however, these facts make the
other world more unsettling because Coraline’s parents being so happy is a
foreign concept to her and she is instantly in the back of her mind suspicious
of this new world also the fact that the colours in this world are so bright
makes you suspect that this world is too good to be true which is later revealed
that it is.
One of the most important aspects of the film is the
beautiful score because it sets the scene for the movie and as you read the
list of songs that were made for this film the titles start of innocent enough
and quickly become sinister as you read down, as does the film. One of the most
important songs of the movie is the ‘other fathers song’ because to hear the
song it sounds playful but as you pay more attention to the lyrics they are
actually quite foreboding to the other mothers true intentions as one of the
lyrics states ‘all eyes will be on Coraline’ which is exactly the true because
the other mother can always keep tabs on Coraline through the dolls eyes.
In
conclusion, I thoroughly enjoy this move a lot because I really the art of making
a stop motion, as they are a very rare kind of animation these days which make
them a treat to watch because they are always physically stunning to see. Also
the fact that this movie was made in stop motion adds to the overall atmosphere
because it looks rustic and real and you ca tell that even one cut was
painstakingly made from scratch out of real material and overall I love this
film because it is a very close true adaptation of the original story by Neil
Gaiman with only a few minor details, like the addition of the character Wybie
to make the character of Coraline seem more real.
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