Reading/Watching Log #60

Last batch of the year!

I didn’t do so great with my New Years’ Resolution of focusing on female-centric stories and female creators: for the most part I managed it, and the quality of stories definitely went up, but during lockdown and in some other areas I just let myself watch or read what I wanted, such was my worry about anxiety levels.

Bu to wrap things up, I went back to the female-focus well, with three period dramas involving three very different queens, books about witches and writers and detectives, and the long-awaited offering from Cartoon Saloon: Wolfwalkers, which is the most gorgeous fairy tale I’ve seen in a long time, starring two imminently loveable heroines.

I took my niece to see the Cinderella pantomime, which was great fun, and secured tickets for two more ballets in the coming year, which is something to look forward to. And I’ve had the last three weeks off, and am well into my “sleep till ten and stay up all night reading” part of the holiday.

I’m very aware that Christmas around the world was a very different experience from what we were allowed to enjoy in New Zealand, and even though the vaccination process has started, we’re still a long way from collective normality. I hope you were able to have some degree of fun over the break, even if it was just cuddling up with a cat in front of the television.

His Dark Materials: Æsahættr

 That was… not great. And yet, it’s pretty obvious that Covid-19 played its part in why this episode felt incredibly creaky and disjointed (though once again, the writers and directors decide against adding anything that could even remotely be construed as emotionally urgent – the only reasonably affecting thing was Lee Scoresby’s death, and that was entirely down to Lin Manual Miranda).

So I’m inclined to give them a bit of a pass, even though this episode was full of choppy editing and weird pacing. Some of the scenes even had characters standing awkwardly at the required three-feet distance when they should have logically moved closer to one another. Hey, it is what it is.

Review: Toy Story That Time Forgot

Who doesn’t love Christmas Specials?

With the release of a Toy Story Halloween Special, it was only a matter of time before Pixar followed up with a Christmas one, and of the two, I think Toy Story That Time Forgot has the tiniest edge over its spooky counterpart. Whereas Tale of Terror was very much built around horror tropes that befitted the holiday it was celebrating, this one is only tenuously linked to Christmas, and yet it builds such an immersive world with its Battlesaur characters that I get wrapped up in the adventure every single time.

Released in 2014, it is longer by its predecessor by exactly one minute, and once again employs a female character as its protagonist (is it annoying that the likes of Jessie and Trixie have to wait for television specials to enjoy the limelight? Yes, but this is the last time I’ll mention it, I promise).

In this case, Trixie the triceratops is frustrated at being cast into the role of anything but a dinosaur in Bonnie’s elaborate games, only to realize that her purpose as a toy is to sublimate herself to her child’s needs. This is a lesson she imparts to the episode’s most important new character, Reptillus Maximus, an anthropomorphic dinosaur action figure that (like Buzz nearly twenty years earlier) doesn’t realize he’s a toy.

It’s basically the same epiphany that the toys learn in all these movies – except, bizarrely, the fourth one. But we’ll get to that in due course...

Angela Barrett: Brave Knight, Fair Lady

You’ve probably never heard of Marie de France, which is not surprising since virtually nothing is known of her life, including her real name. Marie de France was the non de plume of a poet who lived in England during the late 12th century, and is principally known for The Lais of Marie de France, a collection of twelve narrative poems that are all largely concerned with the concept of courtly love.

This retelling of her stories was published in 1989, with the intent of drawing more attention to her literary contribution, and it’s neither the first nor the last time Naomi Lewis and Angela Barrett collaborated on a project. It’s also a perfect match for Barrett’s particular style, for her ornate details and delicate brushstrokes capture that distinct quality of the subject matter: a mysterious medieval period that only ever existed in tales of chivalry and romance.

His Dark Materials: Malice

This was very much a penultimate episode, with almost all the characters making an appearance, and an underlying sense of things coming to a head. (Though it does make me wonder where the Asriel-centric episode would have been placed had it been completed in time).

Mary is exploring Cittàgazze, so is Mrs Coulter and Lord Boreal, Lee and John Parry have also crossed through the doorway into that world, and Lyra and Will are joined by Serafina and the other witches, who take them up into the hills (in the book it’s because that’s where the alethiometer is directing them. Here…I guess they’re just trying to reach higher ground?)

All the strands are coming together…

His Dark Materials: The Scholar

Watching these episodes while concurrently reading the novel is an interesting exercise in how stories get adapted for television, as the chronology of the chapters is very scrambled at this stage. In the book, Will and Lyra’s attempt to steal back the alethiometer happens right on the back of their successful retrieval of the subtle knife, while Lee Scoresby finding John Parry (which occurred in the last episode, cut amidst scenes of the Tower of Angels) comes directly afterwards.

Meanwhile, all of Mary Malone’s material in this episode happens long after the chapter in which Will and Lyra confront Mrs Coulter and Lord Boreal at the latter’s house, but (as with Lee Scoresby in the last episode) has been pushed forward and interspersed with the Will/Lyra adventure.

And two chapters worth of witch-related material has yet to appear, as by this point in the book, they have long since entered the world of Cittàgazze, witnessed the Spectres attacking a convoy, gathered information about this specific threat, seen Ruta Skadi go off with a group of angels, and rescued Will and Lyra from the feral children. Next episode, maybe?

I can understand why these changes have been made, and it’s a good idea to scatter scenes of the supporting cast throughout the “A-plot” of Lyra and Will, but it also means I have to keep skipping back and forth while reading!

His Dark Materials: Tower of the Angels

Argh, I’m running behind on these episodes…

If last week was about looking for things, this week was about finding them: Will and Lyra find the subtle knife (according to the book, it doesn’t have capitals), Lee Scoresby finds Stanislaus Grumman, a.k.a. Jopari, a.k.a. John Parry, Will’s father, and Mary Malone finds a way to communicate directly with the shadow particles...

Links and Updates

Some interesting announcements and creative decisions have made waves in fandom these past few weeks, from yet another disappointing ending to a long-running show, to a pretty incredible choice from Warner Brothers about how they’re going to handle their delayed slate of films in the coming year…

Woman of the Month: Ofelia

I revisited Pan’s Labyrinth last month, and aside from my frustration that Ivana Baquero clearly doesn’t have the career she deserves, I was filled with warmth at the realization that Ofelia is truly one of my favourite heroines of all time.

Set in 1944 after the Spanish Civil War, eleven-year old Ofelia travels with her pregnant mother to join her stepfather in his rural villa, where he and his men are attempting to rout the last remaining rebels that oppose the fascist regime. Captain Vidal is a cold and cruel man, and Ofelia can’t fathom why her mother ever married him.

But this barely figures into her story (at least to start with). One night she follows a fairy into the labyrinth that lies on the villa grounds, and creeps down a spiraling set of steps where a faun is waiting for her. He has a story to tell, as strange as it is intoxicating: that she’s the reincarnation of a princess who fled from her Underground Kingdom, whose father has opened portals all over the world in the hopes that she might one day be returned to him.

It sounds like the sort of fantasy a lonely little girl would come up with (who among us didn’t imagine ourselves as a lost princess as a child?) but in Ofelia’s case everything points to this story being real. And all she has to do to prove her identity is pass three tests…

Interviews with Guillermo del Toro about Pan’s Labyrinth are always fascinating, and he has plenty to say about the character of Ofelia and how she fits into the film’s central thesis. He’s often pointed out that Ofelia is the only character in the film who never takes a life (even Ofelia’s mother ends up throwing the mandrake root in the fire) and it’s her clear conviction that she does not have the right to harm her baby brother – even with the threat of losing what she so desperately wants – that ultimately saves her.

No one can put it better than the man himself:

If people watch it carefully, the precise wording of the faun's words to the girl is: "You have to pass three tests before the full moon shines in the sky. We have to make sure that your spirit is intact and not become mortal."

That's the real purpose of the tests. It's not if she gets the dagger and she gets the key, those are the mechanics of the test, mechanics which she can then proceed to fault. She can flunk the tests. The mechanics of the test she succeeds in. She believes in herself. She does what she thinks is right. She fucks up here and there but—when the real test come, when she is cornered with no other options but to either kill or give her own life—she chooses to put her own life at risk rather than the kid's.

That's a real test. That's what makes her immortal. That's what makes her that she has not become a mortal. So [in] the movie all the tests are a misdirection.

Gah, I love it. To del Toro, disobedience is a crucial part of life – not for what it might gain you, but for what it reveals about yourself when you refuse to give into the cruelty of the world around you. Ofelia’s world is one of danger and defiance, and her story is one of innocence and integrity winning out over the violence of fascism simply by refusing to partake in it. Even at the cost of her own life, she wins a profound moral victory.

She died so young, but in stark contrast with the dying Vidal being told that his son: “will never even know your name”, we the audience know that Ofelia’s presence will linger, not only in the brother she saved, but in signs as subtle and fragile as a white flower blooming on a tree branch.