Last Sunday, five of us went to Breda (no. 6 stayed behind, to spend time with is girlfriend, apparently having 'forgotten' that we'd arranged already), to go and see
Where the wild things are, as that was the nearest town the film was shown and we really fancied watching it. I was a little apprehensive - would Polly be al right? Had Spike Jonze (director of a.o. Jackass the movie...) made it into something horrendous? Was the cinema going to be full of terrible teenagers? Was the film going to be dubbed into Dutch? Can a film be made of a book that has barely 200 words and is read in about one minute?
None of my fears appeared justified - Polly loved it, Jonze had used his Being John Malkovich-approach to the story here, the cinema-room was filled with a varied crowd, there was no Dutch dubbing (thank god!) and the meagre original story was made into something beautiful, thought provoking and even (especially?) for grown ups very watchable. The monsters represented - possible simplified - versions of Max emotions, and it worked. The style was fun and beautiful, very much in keeping with style of the book. Max was 'changed' from the little tyrant he appeared in the book, into a recognisable little boy, who was working very hard to make sense of his world, being very frustrated by and disappointed in the people around him.
Our own Max was disappointed that he missed the chance to come along. Don't think there'll be another film that would have all 6 of us going to see again...
End of an era?
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