Coraline Review and Behind the Scenes Video Clips

I went and saw the film Coraline yesterday, and wanted to share my Coraline review with other Portlanders. Coraline is a stop-motion animation film made in 3D, produced by Portland's Laika animation house. It opened the Portland International Film Festival this week. If you want a one-sentence description of the film, I would sum this movie up as: "imaginative, surreal, magical, eerie, spooky, fantastical, funny, and delightful." It was one of those rare films, for me, where I left the theatre in a state of suspended wonder and delight, a feeling I carried around with me all afternoon.

Handcrafted Animation

I enjoyed the story line, and was blown away with the amount of painstaking and meticulous work that had to have gone into the making of the film. Nowadays, everything in film seems to be almost exclusively computer generated, but this movie was made by hand, frame by frame, using real models. I know as moviegoers, we are all completely jaded and expect to see nearly anything brought to life on the screen thanks to CG animation. But do stop and consider, while you are viewing the film, that this entire movie was made by hand by a team of more than two hundred people, and it took years to create. Clearly, this was a work of love to produce. I know not everyone cares about such things, but I appreciated the craftsmanship. The amount of talent, creativity, and imagination poured into this film is genius.

Coraline Craftsmanship






Real 3D
I was also mesmerized by the stunning 3D effects (which have come a LONG way from the red and blue lenses I remember as a kid), and the visual effects were captivating! Even if you don't love the movie, you have to check out what they have done with 3D...wow! They don't go over the top with the 3D effects in Coraline, it is more a feeling that you are actually IN the scene.

Probably Not for Young Kids
All my gushing aside, I do recognize that Coraline isn't for everyone, especially young kids. Many people expect when they see an animation movie that it must be for kids, but in this case, because the Neil Gaiman book Coraline was originally written in the "horror" genre, the movie may be way too creepy for some. I am pretty sure it would frighten small children. It is dark and eerie in some parts, but also with a delicious undercurrent of humor weaved throughout to lighten things up a bit. Still... I would probably think twice about taking my younger kids to this one. But for adults and teens--especially those with an appreciation for the macabre, or for the art of stop-motion animation -- it's fabulous!

Reminders of Oregon
From Henry Selick, the director of A Nightmare Before Christmas, comes a world of extraordinary imagination... The trailer opens with "Coraline Jones always dreamed of finding a better world..." and how many people do you know have moved here to Oregon with that very dream in mind? Coraline and her family have just moved to Oregon for a better life. At first, Coraline is bored...that is, until she crawls through a small doorway in her old Victorian home, and finds herself in an alternate reality...

Coraline Storyline



Of course, one of the things I loved most about the movie was that it is set in Oregon. They didn't just pull out the stops with the "puppets" created for each character, which were amazingly detailed, they also went all out on the scenery and landscaping. Some of the landscape scenes took my breath away, just like they do in real life here in Oregon, such as when the cherry blossom trees bloom on the Portland waterfront each spring. The scenery is a super-charged version of a surreal fantasyland that looks a little bit like the Oregon we all know and love. Certainly, if you live in Oregon, you will "get it" when you recognize all the little touches, and subtle dialog that others might not understand (like the reference to Ashland Oregon's Shakespeare Festival: when Coraline and her mother go into town to go shopping, they encounter a few "bards" practicing their lines). In fact, it's said that the setting for the movie is based partly in Ashland, Oregon. Coraline herself is a scrappy, independent character, who somewhat personifies the pioneering spirit of Oregon with her brave and adventuresome outlook on the world.

"Biggest Smallest Movie Ever Made

Meet the Coraline Characters

I hope you get out and give our local company, Laika, and all the talented folks behind this film some well-deserved props! Go see Coraline for yourself, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Official Coraline Trailer