The Terrible Power of Memory Manipulation

If there ever was a deadlier power over humans, memory manipulation stands alone as a deeply personal one. 

Many famous serials and stories use memory as a premise for their plots and people, which is unsurprising: immediately there’s a plot device of mystery and intrigue surrounding the character – whether it be internal or external – and for the rest of the story we want to see why, what, and how it all happened – the genesis, the origin, the forbidden fruit, we’re hooked on piecing together what exactly is going on. 

Memory manipulation, of course, occurs to varying degrees. There’s the traditional all-out amnesia, which can be seen all the way back from old folk and fairy lore like princes who forgot their true beloved in stories collected by the Brothers Grimm; there’s classic science fiction elements of wiping out a personality and replacing it with another, as seen in Total Recall starring Arnold Scharzenegger (“If I am not me, then who the hell am I?!”); the selective erasure from a portion of memory, which drives Jack Harkness to pursue and find out why a previous organization did so to him; residual memories that are passed onto the next generation by unique means, like in The Giver; stories that deal with real world medical issues of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s in Away from Her; and then the murky past that serves both as a beacon of light and a haunting, driving obsession to either resolve or run away from it, seen all too often in serials like Jason Bourne. 

Why are memory narratives so engaging? Foremost they are psychological: more than the physical actions at hand are the underlying pulsations of nerve signal, the undulating nuances of electrochemical messages spiking back and forth, to and from somas to axons to dendrites of neurons; yet beyond these neurobiological bounds there is something more science has yet (or if ever) to fully encompass and objectify what exactly composes the arena of irrational emotions – the enigma of psychology. 

We can never be sure if our memory is 100% accurate. Details are lost, omissions are consciously or subconsciously made, facts vary slightly, retellings and subsequent recounting dilutes the actual event more and more: it’s a very fickle component of our cognitive existence – essential, but fickle. Evolutionary, memory serves as a compilation of survival and social skills needed to get by – instinctual muscle memory and habitual memory, you could say. And while humans have evolved to exist on secondary resources (e.g. money) as a means to indirectly survive off primary resources (e.g. soil, water), thus leading to cultural and infrastructural development as we know it, memory still plays an integral part of our daily lives. Whether it’s habitually checking your car mirrors,  playing a piano piece without sheet music or even balancing on your bike – memory is all over the place, instinctually and habitually so. 

Memory is more nuanced than instinctual and habitual tendencies. There are instances we remember for various reasons. From what your boss told you this morning (“Do you still have my stapler?”) to how beautiful your spouse looks on the eve of your honeymoon, what we choose to remember is essential to how our lives function, and invariably these memories – regardless of intention or purpose – are driven by deeply personal reasons. After awhile, the truest aspect of memories is the emotion associated with them – emotions of love, hate, happiness, pain, joy, sorrow, wonder, trauma, all of it. In this sense, memories are incredibly raw in the undulating, hidden reservoirs of our cognitive conscious. This is why memory manipulation is such a engaging and haunting narrative premise to play off of. 

Take for example Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report. John Anderton, upon discovering a glitch in the pre-cog system, soon learns that he will kill a man he has never met. Despite great efforts to evade a highly computerized (optimistically futuristic) society, Anderton eventually finds the room of the alleged victim, Leo Crow. 

This scene is crucial: Anderton sees the man’s bed covered with pictures of children, one of which is of the man with his missing (and likely deceased) son, Sean. Upon seeing these photos Anderton completely breaks down, and when Crow returns into the room Anderton violently rushes at and brutally beats down Crow in a fiery rage and passion. 

What’s noticeable about this climatic scene is that up until now, Anderton methodically and cooly found clues to who could possibly be framing him. Yes, there are moments of action, but nothing compared to the almost bestial fury he unleashes when he’s led to believe Crow was the pedophile who kidnapped (and probably killed) his only son years ago.  And despite the orgy of evidence evident upon the scene (as Danny Witwer later determines, “this [was] a set up”), Anderton lets go of logic to act upon his primal emotions of anger and pain, to unleash upon this alleged man all the emotional scars that never found solace or closure for all these years. Haunted by guilt and long, long episodes of desperation and disillusionment, Anderton holds his memory of Sean so closely to his heart that in a moment of weakness, he loses all his cool and nearly fulfills his own predicted destiny. 

Anderton’s reaction results from an external and intricate manipulation of a memory deeply personal and painful. It’s a very low blow, but considering the perpetrator accomplished other personal goals prior and after it’s not surprise they used such effective and cruel psychological puppeteering. His emotional response is a powerful one not because of what happened, but because it is raw and unrefined beyond any measure of objectivity. 

While Minority Report explored the consequences of a memory past, Christopher Nolan’s breakthrough Memento explored individual fragments of memory leading up to the final consequence. 

Structurally, Memento is one of a kind: it begins with a man being shot, and then a backwards (and eventually forwards) progression to where it all began, where we the viewer finally piece together what has happened to the character of Leonard Shelby, who suffers from anterograde amnesia (the loss of ability to create new memories after the event which caused amnesia due to damage to the hippocampus or surrounding cortices). 

Shelby is haunted by memories of his wife, who he believed was killed by the same burglars who caused him to suffer from retrograde amnesia. He gets by by taking pictures of people and scenery, and then writing himself notes about what he feels or knows about the subjects in the moment he can still recall these feelings or knowledge; that way, he hopes, he progress forward and not start over again from scratch. Lastly, the most important information that he can absolutely never, ever forget – he tattoos them on himself. Fool proof, right?

Wrong. As we can see from an outsider’s objective lens, the people around him manipulate Shelby’s artificial memory mechanism for their own exploits: Shelby’s landlord charges him for two rooms while he only occupies one; Natalie uses him to drive out a man Dodd from town; and Teddy uses Shelby’s investigative vigor to track down his own set of criminals (or so he says). 

There’s a lot of discussion about the fabula and sujet of Memento, but for writing purposes I won’t discuss them here right now. Instead, I believe the implications of Nolan’s breakthrough indie speaks volumes for a few reasons: 

As I’ve said before, memory is not 100% valid: it is a figment of collected information stored in our brains, clipped and edited to our needs and liking. Even if we document the actual events via writing, photography or film, there is always the question of who’s perspective these forms of documenting come from, and whether or not they capture enough of the whole event to merit factual validity. We don’t necessarily need these types of documents to remember an event, but they very much help us remember certain details and emotions that would otherwise be lost to the crevices of cognition. In Shelby’s case, he takes polaroid pictures because he needs to write down his thought process immediately: he relies on a artificial means of memory building, and though it is quick it is no where near the processing speed of the human brain. This limited time frame is just enough for people to take advantage of him for their own needs – and by extension, this time frame is the same time for something to seep in and “tamper” our documenting process. 

Minority Report masterfully combines film noir aesthetics with chique science fiction elements, highlighting a very classic form of memory manipulation – the haunting effect that drives the protagonist to act the way they do, an echo from the past leading to the ultimate conclusion. Memento, on the polar opposite fold, is a generously unconventional film that explores memory manipulation in the opposite way, where we know the conclusion but not the beginning, the echo from the past. Both films were released around the same timeframe (Nolan in 2000 and Spielberg in 2002), so it’s especially interesting to see how two films that explore memory resonate and diverge so much from one another. 

Memory is a very intricate arena of the mind, and any tampering of it invariably violates our own identity. At its core, memory manipulation is incredibly intriguing, terrifying, and deeply emotional – enough to make it a terrible power to have over another. 

Additional Recommended Reading

• Is There a Minority Report? (or What is Subjectivity?) – by Matthew Sharpe, PhD in Philosophy from the University of Melbourne. 

Hedgehog in the Fog – A Masterful Short Film from Soviet Russia

Yuriy Norshteyn’s Hedgehog in the Fog in 1975 is what Walt Disney hoped to achieve when he first released the classical compilation of the animated Fantasia in 1940. In Hedgehog, Norsteyn creates something so magically enchanting and eerily phantasmic that in a mere ten minutes, you will be completely awe struck by the artistry that went into each frame. Recommended to me by Allan Estrella, I finally watched this little gem of a short film after a long day and contemplation about what write about today; and frankly, I couldn’t be thankful that on a whim, I perused my film collection and clicked on this title out of sheer curiosity – and what a stroke of luck it was. The premise is this: 

On his way to meet his friend Bear for star gazing, the little Hedgehog sees a magnificent white horse in the thick fog, and wonders if if would drown in the chance it fell asleep in the white of night. To satisfy his curiosity, Hedgehog goes on in to explore it for himself – amongst which he discovers beautiful and frightening aspects of the unknown. 

What’s so intriguing and engaging about Hedgehog in the Fog is that contrary to Norshteyn’s American colleague Disney, the Russian filmmaker indulges not in the appeal of bright colors and friendly looking anthropomorphic characters, but instead draws out a darker palette and rougher animation style. Amazingly, the entire film is stop-motion – more specifically, it’s cut-and-paste stop-motion, where characters are animated by drawings that are cut out, captured on camera, and done again (this is a similar to how the original South Park episodes were animated before they received a mega computer from LucasArts). Like all stop-motion films, the entire process of creating Hedgehog was, as I can imagine, tedious and exceptionally time consuming. Similar to Disney’s Fantasia, Norshteyn’s Hedgehog in the Fog is heavily dependent on the musical composition to convey the colors and sounds of emotions – from the light flute of fantastical to the harsh strings of scares, the Russian film could easily be considered a music-based film interspersed with short dialogue and a overseeing narrator to inform us of key details. Most of all, it makes Norshteyn’s ten minute film a uniquely auteuristic gem in the small world of animated shorts. 

I say this with the utmost confidence because besides The Very Hungry Caterpillar, there are very few cut-and-paste stop-motion films I can think of off the top of my head. Cut-and-paste animation is incredibly elementary, yet it speaks volumes when an animator can create such an engaging story that aesthetically diverges from comforting feel-good Disney fare. More importantly, Hedgehog is really a story that resonates deeply from childhood memories: we can all remember those times we went exploring beyond something normal, to find something awe inspiring and terrifying at the very same time. Reason and logic leave us: this is something new, undiscovered, mystifying – our emotions run amok, dominating the very way we perceive something to be or not to be. A normal tree becomes a overbearing entity; a squirrel is really a mischievous, plotting squabbler; a leaf turns out to be the deadliest weapon in the entire world; a tiger appears out from the corner of your eye, regardless that you’re actually in North America; and so on. 

There are, of course, common motifs that we can see in Norshteyn’s story. The white horse in the fog is one of purity and mysterious evanescence, blending into the white fog so easily and instantly emerging as a solid entity the next second. The eagle-owl is one of judgement, its bulging eyes constantly alert in case Hedgehog makes a mistake; the dog is one of loyalty and trust, a do-gooder during a time of clout; and the mysterious Somebody in the river, the entity that selflessly aids the protagonist in a moment of need for no other reason than to be kind and helpful. These character archetypes are all too familiar to many of us, especially veterans of Western mythology. Simultaneously, these characters also resonate ever so strongly with childhood enthusiasm and fears, the primal emotions that define our young adolescence so definitively and strongly into black and white, good and bad, yes and no. 

When we are young and know less of the world than eventually will become integral of our minds, the world itself is something of colors and sounds, of highs and lows in the spectrum of amazing and frightening entities. We know not of the in-betweens, the subtle nuances that make up a individual or situation that otherwise discolor the black or whiteness, good or badness. We experience sensory stimuli from our environment, taking in everything as we perceive them to be. The way green grass smells after its freshly cut, the airlessness of swinging oh so high, the unimaginable ghosts and demons that lurch out from the dark, the comfort and familiarity of a home and soft, inviting bed – childhood is extremely visceral, and its oftentimes why we tend to remember it in an exaggerated light relative to the events that actually took place around us. 

Hedgehog dives into this viscerality of experiences and emotions, utilizing the white of fog as a smothering of judgement, rational and logic. We’re tossed into the unknown and bewilderment along with Hedgehog, episodes of fright and awe and all. And by the time we’re released from the fog, we can’t help but feel a little shaken – both good and bad, but mostly a strong shake from childhood past. 

Upon further reading, I learned that the esteemed Hayao Miyazaki considers Hedgehog in the Fog one of his favorite animated films, and that Yuriy Norshteyn a great artist. And after watching ten minutes worth of haunting auteurism and resonating storytelling, I can definitely relate to why Miyazaki considers the Russian film and filmmaker with such high regard. 

Additional Screenshots with Small Descriptions

The opening title that instantly caught my attention. Its silhouette aesthetic with the deep blue night sky with small, shimmering stars is something I rarely see in many animated features. 

This is a very nice screenshot that shows the rougher, sketchier style and darker coloring of Norshteyn as compared to his contemporary, Walt Disney, who opted for cleaner lines and brighter palette. 

I thought the fog effect was brilliant throughout. It has a delegate painter’s touch – almost airbrushing, to that extent – and it was lovely to see how Hedgehog and other environmental aspects merged and faded in with the overlapping fog. 

A small, glowing firefly amongst the confusion and thickness of clouting, white fog - a beacon of light and guidance, essentially. 

It’s difficult to see here, but the animators managed to incorporate realistic water footage into the scene where Hedgehog floats down the river. The effect is both realistic and animatedly stylized. 

A sweet moment between Bear and Hedgehog as they gaze up upon the beautiful, star shimmering skies of the navy blue night. 

The last shot of the entire film, focusing exclusively on the beauty and ambiguity of the white horse of the white fog, and appropriately left unanswered. 

Additional Links

• Hedgehog in the Fog – you can watch this short film on YouTube

• The Very Hungry Caterpillar – another classic cut-and-paste stop-motion short film that you can watch on YouTube as well. 

Documentaries and their Implications

I’ve been watching Michael Moore’s most recent documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story on-and-off for awhile on Netflix. It’s entertaining in a way, knowing full well that Mr. Moore is essentially a brand name for modern American liberalism and that invariably the documentary would appeal to likewise minded individuals and bewilder and appall others; in a sense, I sort of know what to expect – that the film that highlights the downfalls of capitalism, many of which I know full well of – yet at the same time, it’s interesting to see and dissect how he frames his argument and how he uses emotional appeal to win over the viewer’s attention and sympathy. It is, in a sense, almost a narrative in itself – enlightening, entertaining, and emotional, yet still very much rooted in the relevance of current global issues. While mulling over this, a thought popped up in my head: at what point does a documentary about a controversial subject become biased, and what is the ultimate responsibility of a documentary filmmaker? 

This thought is a residual fragment from a lengthy discussion I had with some nuclear engineer students – undergraduates and graduates – back in March this year after watching the french documentary Déchets: Le Cauchemar du Nucléaire, translated “Waste: The Nightmare of Nuclear.” The synopsis of the film is this: 

Nuclear power is not without risks, its Achilles heel being nuclear waste. People are afraid of it, scientists cannot find an acceptable solution to the problem, industry companies are trying to reassure us and politicians avoid talking about it altogether. 

But what do we really know about nuclear waste? How can people have a clear vision of something that has always been shrouded in secrecy?

Looking at the cases of France, Germany, the United States, and Russia, this scientific and political report explores the taboo subject of nuclear power, particularly the darkest aspect of the latter. In seeking “the truth about waste,” this film aims to provide, for the very first time, the keys to understanding the choices which weigh heavily on the future of humanity.

If it’s not already obvious, the documentary was heavily anti-nuclear anything. The interview subjects were often unable to answer framed questions, and the footage showed devastating results of poor regulation and exceptionally poor safety inspections. In short: it was a very, very unflattering portrait of field that has received flack and a bad name post-WWII. 

I participated in the discussion afterwards, which was enlightening, thoughtful, and calmly passionate; in fact, the most heated response I heard was that the film “is pure propaganda.” The moderator – a graduate student in nuclear engineering – did an excellent job in asking specific questions, like why certain footage was chosen, how questions were asked, and most importantly how statistics and technical aspects were explained (if at all), presented, and if they were put into context. I felt the filmmakers were being irresponsible by framing information in a way that favored their assessment – that nuclear is bad – instead of being holistic and putting data into context. It was almost as if the filmmakers picked and chose what they thought sounded “bad” and splashed it on screen with foreboding expositions and emphasis on choice words; the film would have made a much more powerful statement if they had instead tried to do further research to understand the full extent of the technical aspects and clarify them for public understanding – instead, it only muddled public understanding of nuclear energy even further, piling anti-nuclear hippies against cold cut corporate heads. 

Thinking about it now, I still agree with my statement back then, but am unsure as to how one assesses the true validity and bias of a documentary on a subject they may not completely understand or know about. However, I think there are always a few key characteristics to look for if you want to get a hint of where the filmmaker may be coming from: 

• Adjectives are an absolute key. The choice words the filmmaker chooses to narrate the information and what’s going on are so personal that any non-neutral term (i.e. horrendous, petty, beautiful, dubious, malicious) is like a giant billboard of neon lights indicating editorializing. It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t agree with the viewpoint – editorializing indicates an objective on the filmmakers part that is otherwise not completely neutral. 
• Are personal, non-professional stories included? And if so, why? Oftentimes these interviews and segment create a much more human story that a viewer can sympathize with and connect the overarching subject of the documentary to. While these are emotionally effective, they may not necessarily be an objective lens into what the filmmaker wants you to understand; in a sense, seeing emotionally driven stories puts everything into context, though editorializing is invariable given the nature of these segment (I’d argue that this kind of editorializing is necessary to an extent; no one wants to watch a documentary that’s cold cut turkey tryptophan). 
• Who and which professionals are being interviewed, what are their qualifications, and what occupation do they work in? At this point, during the viewing you either know or you don’t know who the people are (though I think it’s invaluable to look them up afterwards to see how the filmmaker could have possibly framed their answers differently). It’s also important to see what relevance the individuals have (beyond what the filmmaker narrates). 
• How and what questions are being asked, and whom are they being addressed to? One of the biggest issues I had with Déchets: Le Cauchemar du Nucléaire was a segment where the filmmakers interviewed a PR guy for a company on questions that were out of his field, and nonetheless asked him in a field rather than an office. Of course he looked terrible – who wouldn’t be if you were probed with questions that weren’t part of your expertise and in an environment you’re not even familiar with? Additionally, the way questions are framed and phrased are incredibly important because they have multiple implications regarding the interviewer and the interviewee: for instance, whenever I see make up commercials saying things like “make yourself more beautiful,” I can’t help but think they’re telling all the women in the world that their product will make them “less ugly” – it’s the same exact idea, yet the framing and phrasing create completely different effects. 
• And most importantly – is the purpose of the documentary explicit or implicit? I feel this is extremely important to consider because it brings to question the validity of a documentary that, for all its evidence and research, has a specific goal in mind that can either directly or indirectly affect viewers’ perceptions and understanding of the subject after watching the film. 

Documentaries are journalistic by nature; however, editorializing occurs to certain degrees (it’s only natural – we’re human after all), so this last point about the explicit or implicit thesis of a documentary is really about validity. For instance, I felt that Déchets: Le Cauchemar du Nucléaire – despite its good intentions – was so explicit in its anti-nuclear approach that a good portion of the evidence and data they presented was framed in a inaccurate light. My same sentiments lie with Capitalism: A Love Story, based off the footage I’ve seen so far: already I know it subscribes to a bias, and invariably evidence will be framed to appropriate Moore’s thesis; while I do agree with his arguments about human rights and equality in lieu of money mongering corporations and corruption, from a more holistic standpoint I can’t help but feel that there’s much, much more to the story than painting corporations completely bad.

Let’s take, for instance, the recent clusterf*ck of British Petroleum in the Gulf: they are unequivocally at fault for everything – horrendous safety inspections, failing to meet regulation standards – and I was appalled by the money they funneled into positive PR commercials instead actually cleaning up the Gulf as thousands of marine fauna and flora died; yet realistically, I can’t paint BP as a wholly evil corporation – like other corporations, they’ve donated money to universities for energy research, and whether or not you agree with such donations and grants all universities need money to run ship shape research facilities; otherwise the money runs out and the university can’t support itself (it must be noted that after Reagan slashed budgets to universities during his presidency, public universities such as the University of California had to resort to the Yale model in order to keep funding themselves – thus began the inflation of tuitions and growing needs for student loans). Another documentary that I’ve yet to see, The Cove, is about the annual killing of dolphins at Taiji, Wakayama, Japan, and based solely off the commercials, I can already tell that it’s very heavily anti-dolphin-hunting; and while I share this sentiment, I worry a bit that the film itself will be too heavily skewed that I may begin questioning its validity at large (this pure speculation: I’ll need to see the film in order to make my full assessment). 

In short: there are always two sides to the story. Personally, I think the most effective documentaries are ones that do not explicitly state their thesis and position on the subject matter, instead relying solely on the viewer’s ability to infer and digest the information presented in a level-headed, even-handed manner – that is, with minimum editorializing as possible. The best example I can think of so far is the award-winning PBS documentary Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making us Sick? I admire this documentary not only because of the ideas it presented – which are revolutionary and still mind boggling – but that it introduces us to a question rather than an assertion. And while the premise is that socioeconomic and racial differences contribute to outcomes of health the film does so in a way that it piques our interest (“there’s something else that contributes to poor health?”) and allows us to see the full extent of the theories: from racism to occupations to social stigmas, the presented data, interview subjects and personal stories are so thorough that by the end of it, you can’t help but wonder what other factors we simply take for granted in life as we know it. Most impressive is that its main idea – that there are unnatural causes contributing to poor health – is very much implicit and inferred rather than in-your-face; it allows the film to maintain a holistic point of view while simultaneously presenting an argument that could be argued for and against. 

It’s always difficult to assess the validity of anything these days: we’ve got nice politicians posting “refudiate” here and there, and some nice TV commentators spewing about walls of insanity they manage to past through on occasion, skeptics who go by their gut feeling to determine that anything can be false – hell, the whole “how do you know that you know that you know that you know” argument becomes a endless whirlwind of who’s right and who’s wrong, etcetera etcetera. These days, it’s so much easier to label everything right and wrong, black and white, blue and red, left and right, hippie and redneck, ceiling cat and Maru – the gray in betweens, the subtle nuances of discourse and discussion that doesn’t involve party animals of tea or proving Godwin’s law again has become like a lost art in this era of digitalization and twitterifying. I think it’s important to look at the gray areas, the areas of uncertainty and discussion and discourse, and to try and be holistic in the scheme of things – even if it means additional research and trying to learn a bit more about things outside your field of expertise (for instance, I have recently begun directing some more mental power towards why a raven is like a writing desk). And given all the hype about 2010 being a terrific year for documentaries, I feel that trying to assess the validity of an argument and presentation – whether or not we agree with it – is all the more important now. We’re in the internet age of Google and Wikipedia, so there’s really no excuse on any of our parts – unless, of course, you are a cat, then you can get away with pretty much anything. 

Documentary Films I’d Like to See (feel free to leave me any recommendations in the contact form or comments!)

• Man on Wire

• The King of Kong

• March of the Penguins

• Food, Inc. 

• The 11th Hour

• I.O.U.S.A.

• Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

• Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

• Monty Python: Almost the Truth

• Waking Sleeping Beauty

• Unmistaken Child

• Can Mr. Smith Get to Wasington Anymore? 

• The Devil Came on Horseback

• Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

• Michael Jackson’s This Is It

• The September Issue

• The Cove

• Exit Through the Giftshop

• Catfish

• Freakonomics

• Inside Job

• A Film Unfinished

• Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

• The Tillman Story

• Encounters at the End of the World

• Sicko

• Jesus Camp

• Murderball

• Daughter from Đà Nẫng

• Sound and Fury

• Last Train Home

Recommended Article

• Should Documentaries Be Excused From the MPAA?

The Simple Sweetness and Sincerity of Wallace and Gromit

Wallace and Gromit are arguably the two most delightful characters in the history of animation. Between the previous sentence and this one I paused thoughtfully and stared into space and thought of all of the other animated characters I have ever met, and I gave full points to Bugs Bunny and high marks to Little Nemo and a fond nod to Goofy, and returned to the page convinced that, yes, Wallace and Gromit are in a category of their own. To know them is to enter a universe of boundless optimism, in which two creatures who are perfectly suited to each other venture out every morning to make the world into a safer place for the gentle, the good and the funny.

– Roger Ebert in his review of Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

If there was ever a series that was rare in its utter sincerity and sweetness, Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit is one I couldn’t recommend enough to children and adults alike. 

My first encounter with the British stop-motion characters – Wallace the hapless inventor and Gromit the intelligent and silent dog – was back in 2005 when both starred in their first feature length film, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I went to see it with one of my best and closest friends at the local theater that specialized in independent, foreign, and non-wide release films that otherwise blared at other local complexes. Since it was before matinee, we happened to be the one of the older bunches in the theater as Park’s film reeled across the wide screen. 

From what I can remember, it was an absolute pleasure seeing Wallace and Gromit go about their usual business as the Were-Rabbit terrorized a town in its rabbit-like mannerisms. Not only was the stop-motion astounding, but the creativity and narrative were off the charts. The Rube Goldberg like contraption that tips Wallace from his bed into his trousers, followed by putting on sleeves, a vest, and buttering his toast – this was nothing other animation studios like Disney, Pixar, or Ghibli had ever imagined or even come close to depicting. This was Nick Park at full throttle with the creative bunch of Aardman Studios, and the entire lapse of remaining minutes was nothing short but a roller coaster of ingenuity, hilarity, and adventure. 

My memory of Were-Rabbit is fond not only because of the film itself, but because of the emotions I felt and how utterly enjoyable it was. I remember at one point, when Lady Tottington turned around with two watermelons held to her bosom and asks (a transforming) Wallace, “how to you like melons?” – we both burst out laughing like no other, so much that a kid asked their mom “mommy, why are those two laughing so much?” and she responded “just ignore them, honey.” In short: this pretty much summed up my first experience of Wallace and Gromit, and established Aardman Animations as one of my favorite animation studios to date for many, many reasons. 

What makes Wallace and Gromit so unique, so charming, so inventive, and so undeniably sweet? First, I think it’s important to classify the three major animation studios that are well-known in the American domestic and internationally:

• Disney has always been about the magic and the fantastical (any Disneyland veteran will instantly confirm this with anyone). Their most well-known and well-received films – which include the obvious Snow White and The Little Mermaid – have mostly been adaptations of classic fairy and folk tales from collections of the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christen Anderson. The core appeal of these films includes their happily-ever-after conclusions, musical numbers, bubbly side characters, and easily palatable animation aesthetics (good and evil are very distinct entities, and drawn in such a way that the audience can easily identify who to like and who to hate).
• Pixar broke away from Disney traditions by simply investing in high-quality, limit-pushing technical mastery and heartwarming, engaging stories. Arguably, their premiere film Toy Story cemented what the studio was all about from the very beginning: breakthrough, technique, direction, wide appeal, and story, story, story. After fifteen years it’s nice to see that the studio – up until this point – has favored originality and constant constructive criticism over conservatively safe creative stagnation. While this may change in the near future (and I surely hope not), I’ve always been fond of Pixar for their aspiration towards quality and the genuine belief in the public’s desire for greater expectations of film, and especially of animation. I just hope Lasseter and the rest of the gang are smart enough to not pull a Michael Eisner or a George Lucas in their future decisions. 
•  Hayao Miyazaki’s and Isao Takahata’s Studio Ghibli is world renown for films like Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and arguably the most famous, My Neighbor Totoro. What all these films share is their directly non-Western narratives, depictions and aesthetics – almost the polar opposite of what their Disney contemporaries aspired towards. The greatest emphasis is on the details of the environment, and how almost everything – from a falling dragon to how two young girls react upon seeing a forest spirit – is drawn and inspired from how humans and nature can harmoniously coexist (recently, while watching bits from Ponyo, one of my brother’s friends commented, “everyone seems so at peace with what’s happening around them despite the events being completely unnatural. In fact, it’s almost as if they went ‘oh hey look, ancient sea creatures… ok.’”)

With these characteristics in mind, it’s easier to see why Nick Park (and by extension Aardman Studios) is so utterly unique in animation and storytelling. 

I’ve recently watched three Wallace and Gromit short films on Netflix – A Close Shave, A Grand Day Out, and most recently A Close Shave – in this order respectively, and now feel confident enough to say this: what is so striking about Park’s animation and directing style is his utter sincerity. There really isn’t anything fantastic or awe-inspiring or jaw-dropping – in fact, the most amazing thing about Wallace and Gromit is how un-amazing and quiet it is as a whole. Sure, you have the Goldberg like inventions, the inexplicable physical feats otherwise impossible in the real world as we know (speeding on a toy train while laying out toy train rails in front of you to make a path? Check!), the uniqueness of each frame and character look that results from careful and painstaking stop-motion clay animation, the dubious “antagonist” that, well, antagonizes with a specific plot point ('ello, Mr. Were-Rabbit) – but beyond all of that hullabulloo and pragmatic nonsense, at the end of the day Wallace and Gromit are just content to have themselves a nice cup of tea with some crackers and Wenslydale cheese. 

Wallace and Gromit is so quiet, so modest, and so simply sweet and sincere that no other popular animation studio – Disney, Pixar, Ghibli alike – has ever thought of pursuing. The closest analogy I could draw for those who are familiar with all three studios (not including Aardman) is this: imagine the little scene in Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro where the two girls are fetching water from the stream. For a few seconds, the camera cuts to a part of the flowing water, where a discarded bottle has become lodged between a couple of small rocks. It’s the sort of attention to detail that many animators (for the sake of time) ignore or choose not to do – yet for those few seconds we see such a detail that says so little yet so much at the same time. Another scene (that I’m sure more are familiar with) is in Andrew Stanton’s Wall•E, where Wall•E picks up a ring holder, takes out the diamond ring – only to throw it away and play eagerly with the box it came in (when I was watching it in theaters, a woman behind me exclaimed “ooh!” before the little robot chucked it away). These small instances of extreme attention to minute details that on average, we take for granted everyday, is what Wallace and Gromit is all about. Stop and smell the roses –would probably be the best quote summation of Nick Park and Aardman studios as a whole. Most amazing is Nick Park’s utter humility and seemingly lacking desire to do more in Wallace and Gromit except more Wallace and Gromit: that is, he simply tiptoes away from the traps of repetitive sequels and creative stagnation that Dreamwork’s Shrek franchise ran into after its first sequel. There is a self-awareness that in spite of the series’ British domestic and international success, there is always something else greater outside the little bubble of the charming duo. 

Even though it is a precious and nostalgic collection and valuable to the company, in light of other tragedies, today isn’t a big deal.

– Nick Park responding to the resulting destruction of Aardman’s storage warehouse after a fire accidentally broke out in 2005. He is referencing the South Asian earthquake in his response.

One of the most touching moments out of the three short films I’ve seen recently is in A Grand Day Out, where Wallace and Gromit traverse via rocketship to a planet presumably made out of a cheese. The planet’s guardian, a box-like robot, wakes up to protect the natural environment and comes across the duo’s spread out picnic; collecting each item for its inventory, the robot comes across a travel magazine focusing on skiing. It becomes inspired, and desires to follow Wallace and Gromit back home to earth; however, due to a misunderstanding, the duo take off, and the robot is stranded on its planet with a few pieces of the rocket. 

In a sad yet sweet moment, the robot takes the pieces, mends them into makeshift skis, and makes due with the little cheese hills – thus accomplishing his little dream of skiing in the snowy alps of earth, albeit slightly modified. 

Comparatively, the two other films after Park’s first short film feature – A Close Shave and The Wrong Trousers – don’t quite hit this lightning-in-a-bottle mark of sad-sweetness, a sort of happy ending without the happily-ever-after, if you will. Don’t misinterpret me though: these two other films do wonders in mixing comedy gold and silliness with ace animation and unbelievably creative achievements while balancing a dubious (even menacing) antagonist whose eventual fate is actually quite satisfactory (and ironically humorous, for the matter); and if I recall correctly, this comedy gold mix was also prevalent in Were-Rabbit, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was also present in the short film I’ve yet to see A Matter of Loaf and Death. I look forward to getting my hands on the short-short film compilation Cracking Contraptions and seeing episodes of the upcoming (or currently broadcasting?) series Wallace and Gromit’s World of Inventions (in fact, the premise of World of Inventions instantly got me sold on the series; one of my lifelong goals is to tie in science with art, animation and film, and seems like Nick Park (and even Henry Selick, for the matter) is ahead of me in the game already. Why does it seem like stop-motion animators always seem to be the most unique?)

As a closing to this entire tidbit, I will say this: the little robot skiing its way across hills on the desolate planet of cheese will forever be a memorable little scene in mind and memory of film and animation. 

Strangely though, after watching story – I’ve always got a strange craving for cheese. Specifically pub cheese. Coincidence? 

…

Additional Links

• Train chase scene in The Wrong Trousers – the audio dubbed for a college student’s project but you can see how inventive the animation and action is. 

• Opening of The Wrong Trousers – you can see the Rube Goldberg inspirations all over this. 

The Mythology of Neil Gaiman's "Coraline"

How can you walk away from something and then come towards it? 

If there was ever a modern narrative that truly captured the essence of classic fairy tales, Neil Gaiman’s Coraline is at the top of the list. 

Published in 2002 and adapted by esteemed animator and director Henry Selick in 2009, Coraline is a story that masterfully mixes elements of the Brothers Grimm, Lewis Carroll, and modern distinctions into a seamless, engaging story. Like Guillermo del Toro’s masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth, which hauntingly and effectively mixed the forces of magical realism into the period of the Spanish civil war, Laika studio’s Coraline sews elements of intrigue, mystique, and unflinching horror into the American Northwest. Most striking of all is that the main character, Coraline, is not a typical American depiction of a young girl: she is feisty, spunky, sharp, restless, and astoundingly curious, yet still as emotionally vulnerable as anybody can relate to. This is a immaculately fleshed-out female protagonist, which is a rare gem in a majority films even in this day. 

Let’s start out with the plot: Coraline moves to the Pink Palace Apartments of Oregon with her parents, who are writers for a gardening magazine (ironically, neither of them seems particularly fond of getting muddy). Removed her from friends in Michigan, Coraline quickly becomes bored and disgruntled with her new, grey surroundings. And why shouldn’t she be? As a kid I had enough trouble being attentive if something wasn’t shiny enough; I can only imagine what it’s like to try and find something exciting in an environment where your neighbors include two retired (and slightly delusional) actresses, a extremely confident Russian acrobat who eats beets, samples cheeses, and trains mice, and a peer who gives you a doll that looks identically like you on your first day in town – well, to say the least it’s understandable how easily intrigued Coraline becomes when some kangaroo mice lead her into a mysterious doorway to another world, that of the Other Mother. 

There are three key characters in Coraline that highlight Gaiman’s mastery of classic and modern storytelling: Coraline’s real mother, the Cat, and the Other Mother. Each character represents a certain element of storytelling that I think is interesting from a narrative point of view, and that these elements – due to changing social interests, values and philosophies – have become something like Easter Eggs or hidden gems: you have to look a bit harder and a bit differently to appreciate them. 

 

Coraline’s real mother is a terrific example of a modern narrative element that Gaiman combines so seamlessly with classic narrative elements in Coraline. Unlike the Other Mother, Coraline’s real mother does not go from one emotional extreme to the other; while she is (justifiably) irritable, she does not outright smother or reprimand Coraline. Instead, she is a mixture of characteristics seen in the Grimm’s birth and stepmother characters: while stern upfront, she still very much cares about Coraline’s well being (though these nuances of emotions are, for the most part, a bit difficult to infer from at first; subsequent readings and viewings more clearly reveal a softer and more vulnerable side of Coraline’s real mother). Most interestingly is that everyone in Coraline’s household responds and listens primarily to Coraline’s mother, establishing the matriarchal norm within the three member household. This is exceptionally modern: the dynamic between Coraline’s mother and father is not of equal authority, but of female dominance (which is likely where Coraline derives her self-substaining, independent and non-Disney-princess antics from). Ironically, this very modern characteristic is also shared by the Grimms stepmother-like Other Mother, who reigns supreme in her constructed universe (as I’ll explain in a bit). 

The Cat is probably the most obvious narrative element of the three, as Lewis Carroll fans will instantly see a distant cousin of the smiling Cheshire Cat, the mysterious character that aids Coraline for motives unknown other than he dislikes the Other Mother and he simply feels like it. And that’s just it: in life, there are always those random encounters with those individuals who for truest intentions unbeknownst to us, simply act in goodwill; there isn’t so much an explanation for it than at that moment in time, at that exact spot and proximity, they simply did what they did, and nothing more. In the Cat’s case, he simply assists because presumably, it’s just another deal in the day for him (it just so happens that he’s also not particularly fond of the Other Mother, though we can safely assume they’ve got quite a history of antagonism with one another). The Cat is also odd in his own sense, but not entirely unique foam other characters that randomly assist the main protagonist of a story: he takes full pride in his status as cat, believing that humans are a subservient species; the mere fact that he’s graciously taken some of his time to even converse with Coraline is, to him, a great act of beneficiary benevolence, and that he invariably knows something more than what he’s already revealed to Coraline and us. This is rather similar to other characters in classic stories that seem to randomly assist the main protagonist in their quest: the Cheshire Cat always spoke in cheerful riddles, coming and going as he very well pleased; and for many gamers, the assistant character somehow always knows what to do next for no other reason than to help us out (Though Navi’s “Hey Listen!” would drive anyone up the wall). I will say this – that Gaiman’s (and subsequently Selick’s) description and depiction of the Cat is one of the best interpretations of felines I’ve read and watched in quite some time (though I think it’s hard for any cat to beat the international appeal of ol’ Maru). 

The Other Mother represents an even more classic archetype in the vein of fairy tales – that of the rageful stepmother. While she isn’t Coraline’s stepmother persay, the Other Mother definitely possesses characteristics of stepmothers reminiscent of the Brother Grimm from a mythological point of view.

As I’ve mentioned before in a previous analysis, the Brother Grimms actually changed a lot of the original stories they collected to appeal to a wider audience. One of the biggest changes was the inclusion of the evil stepmothers in the second edition which, for the most part, did not exist in the original first edition. They made these changes because originally, the acts of many evil stepmothers were originally the actions of the birth mothers; however, because it was so disturbing they amended this detail in later editions. Scholars have analyzed the evil stepmother motif as a symbol of a psychological fear inherent to every child: that because we rely so heavily on the comfort and love of our mothers as children (while the father is typically the more disciplinary figure), we often harvest a in-the-back-of-the-head fear that for reasons unknown to us, she could change 180º in temperament and unleash absolute frustration and rage upon us. 

Given the historical context of the Brothers Grimm, it’s interesting to see that the Other Mother encompasses both the characteristics of the loving and wrathful maternal figure. In the beginning she is welcoming, warm, and inviting (almost too inviting, to say the least; it’s fortunate that Coraline is at least intuitive enough to pick up on something that’s wrong even after being awed by the pleasures of the Other World); however, once Coraline rejects her requests and desires, the Other Mother instantly changes in temperament, becoming cruel and sadistic. The black widow thematic is quite obvious, especially for those who’ve seen the movie and Selick’s masterful aesthetic in animation: like Pleasure Island of Pinocchio, the Other Mother entices her victims in with promises of desire, fun and pleasure, and when they fall her trap – bam! slam and shut, game over. More interesting though is what the Other Mother (and simultaneously Coraline’s real mother) present as a form of female empowerment: in both worlds – the real and Other – the maternal figures are the authority figures. In a strange sense, Gaiman’s story is one of female empowerment, of matriarchal status quo, of nonconformist girls, and of feminism rarely seen in many modern narratives.

I’ve talked before about why Coraline is such a exceptional female character in modern narrative (especially the male-dominated world of film) and why the story is so progressive in this respect. More unique and less noticeable, I believe, is the classic and modern mythological elements of Neil Gaiman’s fanciful and quixotic story. My biggest disappointment is that the Academy Awards didn’t recognize the technical and narrative originality of the stop-motion animated film, instead going for safer grounds with the happier, more light-hearted and less complex film of well-established Pixar’s Up. That’s just how it goes I guess; still, the politics of it all will never detract away my admiration for the fairy tale, thematics and filmmaking mastery of Coraline. 

*Note: apologies for the very belated post. I became progressively more and more sick after Tuesday and was unable to write in time for Thursday since I wasn’t quite in the right state of mind. Presumably this would explain why this analysis is a lot shorter than I intended it to be. To be sure, though, Coraline will likely show up again in future articles, so hope prevails!