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Film offers ‘Wild’ look back
Published October 25, 2009
As a child, weekly trips to the public library were part of the routine of life. At some point, constant needling of my mother and the need to return the growing pile of books I’d finished since the last visit would necessitate a return to the library and a chance to search for more books.
I was always open to the discovery of new books, especially ones filled with space travel or dinosaurs (or both, if lucky), but there were also perennial favorites, the books that I constantly sought out and read again and again. Chris van Allsburg’s “The Polar Express” was a regular selection, as were Dr. Seuss books and even one particular favorite, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” which my mother often told me I came home with the entire book memorized.
And then there was the king of them all, the book that probably required replacing after all the times I checked it out — Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.”
The story of Max, a young boy in a wolf costume who travels to the country of the beastly Wild Things after being sent to his room with no supper, was not just a regular children’s book. It was the stuff of magic, a story where a boy could sail through a sea that appeared in his bedroom, tame and rule over beasts as their king and then return home to find his meal still hot. Without knowing it at the time, it was the story of childhood and its wonders and terrors, triumphs and tragedies and happily ever afters.
So when a film version of the childhood favorite came to theaters this month, I immediately sat myself in front of the silver screen to see how it translated into moving pictures.
I’m pleased to report the movie was a success — preserving both the darkness and the wonder of the book and fleshing the simple skeleton of a story in the book into a full-fledged journey of discovery. It’s not perfect — it drags a little bit in the middle, the Wild Things are sometimes mopier than carnivorous beasts should probably be and it gets almost too psychoanalytical at times — but seeing Sendak’s wonderful art transformed into vivid landscapes and lifelike Muppet-like beasts is still a thing of wonder.
The movie has attracted some criticism for being too frightening for some children, especially the ones most likely to still be reading the book. And the image of the Wild Things gnashing their teeth and threatening to eat Max is perhaps too much for a 6-year-old.
But for older children, and those who remember childhood, “Where the Wild Things Are” is a fascinating film, a movie that doesn’t just portray childhood, but recalls it so vividly as to transform the viewers, if only for an hour and a half, into children again themselves.
And, even for those who don’t feel the wonder and magic in the movie, the book is still there, in public libraries everywhere, waiting to be discovered by new generations of children.
That is, assuming I haven’t already checked it out myself.
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