Update on "How to Train your Dragon".

I DID get a chance to get an answer from Cressida Cowell (writer of the book series) about the possible origin of the conflict between the Vikings and the Dragons, and this is her direct answer:

"I didn’t have one specific conflict in mind – although there are plenty to choose from. Unfortunately the cycle of war and conflict seems to reverberate and repeat itself throughout history.  I was interested in exploring this in the books".

Thank you Cressida.  I hope to catch up with William Davies, Dean DeBlois, or Chris Sanders, if possible.
My kids have already purchased dragon toys, one of Toothless that flaps and gapes, a very realistic looking replica, and another one that is green and horned.   Hooray!  More Asian plastic in our house.

Black Swan - 2010 - Darren Aronofsky directs, Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, and Vincent Cassel star ___________________________________________________

In the 1976 movie Carrie, we saw a girl warped by her home life, controlled completely by an oppressive and mistrusting mother who held a skewed religious belief over Carrie.  Her mother was also paranoid about boys and sexuality, and letting go of her daughter.  In Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan", these are parallel with Nina, and there are other comparisons .  But artistry in the case of Swan is far and above that horror story of yesterday.  Darren has taken suspense and psychological drama to yet another new level in this deeply haunting tale.  And it is accessible and easily understood without pandering to lower tastes, gratuity, or juvenility (although these are all critiques of the film that others have attempted to place on it). 

It is amazing, surprising, alarming, and yet also brutally honest, in the end.  It is about female sexuality, repression, possessiveness, the transference of dreams from one generation to the next, and also about the abusive state of male dominance and sexuality in yet another sphere of public life that is uncontrolled and inaccessible, except of course for the daring filmmaker.  It is also about growing up, and loss of innocence, sadly, at the hands of the social structure and pressure of misplaced, subversive, or sometimes simply diabolical expectations.  Nina eventually becomes the product of what is expected of her.

Carrie was withdrawn in an unhealthy way.  Nina is not exactly like that, but simply oppressed and backwards, needing to get out and become her own person.  She dumps her toys and rejects her mother's brooding protection.  However, we find as the story progresses that a psychosis has already wormed its way into her system, and mother and daughter are more alike than either suspects.

Black Swan is a must see for the psychologist, all men who may be struggling to understand the importance of their role with the female, and serious filmmakers and visual artists.  Women may find this story suffocating, or difficult to take, while also identifying with its sympathy-winning heroine.  It's unlikely that anyone in ballet will love this film, and in fact I've read a few negative comments concerning the ballet work, some from ballet experts and enthusiasts.  But what needs to be clear here is that this film, while placing ballet firmly in the center of the story as it's petri dish, is not about ballet.  The same story could be told about gymnastics, or sports of some kind, or anything that involves talent where a pushy parent corners a child in their world and attempts to create in them what they could not have for themselves.  It is both loving desire, and insipid self-interest, in this case, at a greater expense mother would wish to pay.

I'm going to give a more extended analysis of this film later, but for now, here is how I see it....

Brilliant: 5 stars

How to Train Your Dragon_________________

How to Train Your Dragon

Dreamworks - 2010

Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler and Christopher Mintz-Plasse 
Cressida Crowell, author of the How To Train Your Dragon series of 8 books to date, states this in her interview, unequivocally, “The relationship between Stoick and Hiccup…. is the heart of the book”.  She was glad that Dreamworks “captured that” in their animated creation of the same name, directly adapted from her books.  The film is a huge hit.

The movie, How to Train Your Dragon, is a great and fun story, with depth and pathos, and really very funny.  It moves without dull moments, the animation is top notch 3D, without being a headache to watch.  The visuals are some sort of blend of pure 3D and traditional animation that smoothes the whole thing out and makes it so visually appealing.  As far as the writing, you can’t get a better story.  There is the touching father/son relationship that Cressida talked about, which makes the father look a bit vacillating as he goes through acceptance, rejection, and then acceptance again, according to the whim of the moment.  His world is based on pride of strength.  The hero of the story is Hiccup, of course, because the secret, inside knowledge of the truth is always on the audience’s side, and because the father figure can afford to be wishy washy.  That’s how many of us have experienced parenthood from the child’s perspective, parents that screw up and change their minds, even when we know better.

But what is it we know better of here?  Early on we are privy to another level of knowledge in the story that is the great foundation of conflict, and is the much larger backdrop to the familial struggle.  What is even deeper than the healing and coming together of a father and son?  It is the ingrained, sociopathic reaction and prejudicial treatment of dragons by the Vikings.  Hiccup, with an air of sardonic passive aggressiveness delivers the line himself several times when he says, “We’re Vikings, that’s what we do.”  He is referring of course to age-old habits of social behavior, based on a misconception about the dragons.  In one conflict with his father Stoick, the classic tit-for-tat conversation occurs.  “They’ve killed hundreds of our people!” “And we’ve killed thousands of THEM!”

We find that the dragons are dictated by a much larger force that is driving them to plunder, at the heart of their kingdom, an evil and oppressive force that calls them with a siren signal to come feed it, as old as the mountains themselves maybe, and deeply hidden.   This all seems familiar somehow.  Is it political, or simply personal?  That is a question best left to the screenwriters, or maybe Cressida Crowell herself.  Often archetypes are not explained, like metanarratives they lie underneath like belief itself, driving and pushing, without a word of explanation, and surprising sometimes even to the authors themselves.  So I feel compelled to ask them, William Davies, Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders, and Cressida, if there is a political motivation that might be thinly veiled there, or a social statement.  I can easily assign one myself by asserting that the treatment of the Dragons by the Vikings resembles the WASP treatment of blacks in America, or the conflict in Ireland between Catholic and Protestant.  What I want to ask the authors, however, is if they have a particular take on this conflict in the story, its resolution, or where they might be drawing that from.

If I can get an interview or quotes from them, I’ll be back with more.  In the meantime, knock yourself out on this one, and see it with a kid.  It’s worth it!

5 stars