finding family
by Douglas Messerli
Wes
Anderson and Roman Coppola (writers), Wes Anderson (director) Moonrise Kingdom / 2012
Over the past several years there has
been a spate of movies and plays devoted to and influenced by the tales of J.
M. Barrie concerning Peter Pan. I reviewed two of those, Mabou Mines' Peter and Wendy (see My Year 2011) and, more recently, Rick
Elice's Peter and the Starcatcher.
Now we have Wes Anderson's Moonrise
Kingdom that, although it has no direct references to the Peter Pan story,
clearly has relationships to it. I suppose that in a time when "centers
collapse"—as I maintain in this year's cultural annual—we should be
prepared for children striking out on their own, seeking worlds or attempting
to create new worlds that parents have failed at; or, as my movie-going
companion, Thésèse Bachand put it, it is a time when children must parent the
adults.
Anderson's films, as several
critics have noted, have always occurred at the intersection of children's
fantasies and adult lunacies, of which there can be no better example than
Anderson's most recent film. Just as in his 2004 film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (see My Year 2004), Anderson's new film begins with a world in
miniature, a representation of the sets we will soon encounter on a larger
scale, which both underscores the theatricality that is so central to his art
and suggests the toyland like conceptions of Anderson's fantasies. Color,
decoration, and costume dominate as he introduces, one by one, the cast of
eccentric beings who are at the heart of this director's vision. Of course,
this may be seem coy and even fey to
many moviegoers: both Bachand and my companion Howard found Moonrise Kingdom to be slightly
irritating just on this account. Yet that is precisely why I so enjoy
Anderson's art. From the very start, he makes clear that the story he will tell
is "made up" out of series of component parts, a tale spun by a
storyteller who seems to be creating the work as he goes along.
Laura Bishop: Does it
concern you that your daughter has
just run away from home?
Walt Bishop: That's a
loaded question.
Sam and Suzy have met, quite by accident, one year earlier during a
performance of Britten's children's opera, Noye's
Fludde (see My Year 2011), based
on the medieval mystery play. Showing us a flashback of their encounter and
immediate attraction to one another, the director introduces yet more
structural elements of his film, in particular, the pairing of animals and
humans and the threat of a disastrous flood, which as the film's narrator (Bob
Balaban) foretells, is about to settle over the New Penzance Island of 1965.
Together, using Sam's scouting skills and Suzy's imagination and pluck, the two
trek the island, attempting to outwit parents, police, scouts, and scouting
master, as they seek a new paradise with one another on an isolated cove. For a
short time they manage to elude their would-be captors, escaping, as Peter and
Wendy, into a kind of magical Neverland where they might explore life as
intelligent and sexual beings, hoping to establish the identities so rejected
by all the others they have encountered before.
Ultimately, of course, they are tracked down and returned to a
"civilization" that further demeans them, the Bishops enforcing tighter
restrictions upon their daughter and the Billingsleys ousting Sam from the only
home he has known via correspondence.
When the authorities receive a call from Social Services (hilariously
performed by Tilda Swinton, dressed in a kind of Salvation Army-like blue garb),
the Police Captain, Scout Master, and the telephone operator are appalled by
her cruel efficiency as she hints that the wayward boy may be sent to an
orphanage or even given shock-therapy for his behavior.
Even the bullying scouts, startled to hear of these potential tortures
for their former camp member, decide to get involved, helping Suzy to escape
and bringing her to Sam, now locked away on a boat belonging to the Police
Captain. This time, they all run off together, Suzy reading to the boys just as
Wendy has read stories to the lost boys and Peter Pan.
Having now been abandoned by an
entire scouting troop, the perplexed Scout Master Ward, Police Captain Sharp,
and the Bishops again go in pursuit of the missing children, with the Captain
Hook and Crocodile-in-one, Social Services right behind them. For once, I will
resist revealing the rest of this delicious plot, saying only that in the
brewing storm, lightning strikes thrice and the adult world is devastated
before the children are miraculously saved, Sam finding a home with the lonely
Police Captain and Suzy returning to the "darling" Bishops' snug house.
Just as Mrs. Bishop formerly snuck off for trysts with her Police Captain lover,
so now does Captain Sharp bring his new-found son to the Bishop house so that
Sam might secretly visit the young Suzy. Each has found a family, in themselves
and with others, bringing their distinct voices into the orchestra of life.
Anderson cleverly repeats this theme once more even in the credits, as
Sam narrates the orchestral components of composer Alexandre Desplat's original
score.
Corny? Perhaps. Obsessive? Obviously. Charming? I'll end with a quote
from Anthony Lane's excellent review of this film from The New Yorker:
Who knows, we may
look back on Anderson's works as we
do on the boxes of
Joseph Cornell—formal troves of frippery,
studded with
nostalgic private jokes, that lodge inexplicably
in the heart.
Los
Angeles, June 4, 2012
Yes, yes!! Moonrise Kingdom also reminded me of THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING in the setting, plot details, strange rendez-vous and severe confrontations (tho not international) all resolved by events relating to children hanging from New England church steeples. Erland G. Anderson,Ph.D.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite films of 2012! This is a sensational review. I'm glad I stumbled across your blog today.
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