Coraline 2009- Henry Selick

Coraline 2009- Henry Selick

Coraline is not Selick’s first stop motion film. He is also the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Both films have an extremely creepy tone and this can be seen as a trait in many of his films. Coraline is based upon Neil Gaiman’s novel of the same name.

Despite not being obvious to the audience, Coraline in an almost creepy and haunting way to tell the younger audience; Be grateful for what you’ve got, after following Coraline’s journey in the other world. Coraline’s other home, on the other side of the door, can be perceived as  a personification of “be careful what you wish for”. Though she doesn’t state what she wants, it’s clear from her emotions and her passiveness she is not happy about moving house or her parents. In the beginning of the film, it is clear from her reactions to the new house and her busy parents, she is not content.

The picture of her friends at her old school can be representative of her old life and happiness. Her old happiness is not necessarily trapped and gone, but it is now a different entity in her life. The picture in the frame is an old captured moment, her last happy memory captured in a picture. The fact that the picture of her old life is now a separate entity in her new life, shows that she needs to move on from that period of time, which is what she struggles to do during the film. She compares a new era in her life to an old one, which stops her from truly being happy.

In contrast, at the end of the film when she smashes the snow globe to releases her parents, symbolises her moving on from her old life. Through her tough times in the other world, Coraline finally realises she has to move on and create and work for something better in her new life. Smashing the snow globe and watching it melt without her parents seeing it, helps her to realise what she was missing when she was stuck in an alternate world.

The garden in also representative of her moving on. At first the garden in dried up and un-touched. Her parents refuse to let her garden which holds her back in becoming more comfortable in her new home. Gardening is her rock and that gets taken away from her in the beginning of the film. The theme of nature runs through the film connoting Coraline’s attachment to gardening and how it “roots” her in place.