There are two doors, each with one guard infront. One door leads to the castle, the other to death. You are allowed to ask only one guard one question to try and figure out which door leads where. But there’s a catch, one guard always lies, while the other always tells the truth. The problem is you don’t know which guard is the cumpulsive liar. What one question do you ask, and which guard do you ask to find out what door to go through?
Caldwell, Thomas. “Film Review- Labyrinth (1986).” Cinema Autopsy. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov 2012. <http://blog.cinemaautopsy.com/2012/04/05/film-review-labyrinth-1986/>.
Cassady Jr., Charles. “Labyrinth.” Common Sense Media. N.p., 11 2005. Web. 29 Nov 2012. <http://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/labyrinth>.
crpwnroyal05, . “Epinions.” Epinions.com. N.p., 14 2011. Web. 29 Nov 2012. <http://www.epinions.com/review/mvie_mu-1011774/content_537806212740?sb=1>.
Darnton, Nina. “The New York Times.” New York Times. (1986): n. page. Web. 29 Nov. 2012.
nik7jq, . “Epinions.” Epinions.com. N.p., 30 2012. Web. 29 Nov 2012. <http://www.epinions.com/review/mvie_mu-1011774/content_584236109444?sb=1>.
The Labyrinth
In 10th grade, my teacher brought up a riddle from “the best eighties movie of all time”. I immediately recognized the riddle and having seen the movie, automatically knew the answer. However, no one else had even heard of the movie. So, of course, I was the only one that got the answer correct. I was extremely excited and proud of myself, yet I was somewhat upset that none of my peers even knew what this movie was. After all, I was practically raised on this classic. Therefore, I decided to write an evaluation on it.
Luckily, it is making a comeback. According to Thomas Caldwell, “it doesn’t seem too outlandish to suggest it is on its way to becoming a children’s fantasy classic,” He was speaking of Jim Henson’s masterpiece, The Labyrinth, being digitally remastered recently. Unfortunately, this movie was not a success when it was first released in 1986. However, “Labyrinth now has cult status to the extent that it does feel like part of the collective folklore that includes all the fairy tales, fantasy stories and mythology that it references.”
“The presence of Monty Python’s Terry Jones as the films only credited screenplay writer (there were others) ensured that the film was filled with plenty of humour,” explains Caldwell in his review. He speaks of how George Lucas and Jim Henson (and many others) worked together to make a film now referred to as “Henson’s final feature film and a wonderful gift from a person,” “The resulting film is truly a testament to the creative energies of all involved, but most of all Henson who did so much in making high quality entertainment for people of all ages that was fun, imaginative, not afraid to be subversive in content or form, but most of all humane.”
The gothic fantasy is the story of a 15-year-old girl, Sarah. Sarah, like most other teenagers, is selfish, immature, and a little strange. Her room is filled with all of her favorite things, books and stuffed animals. When it comes to books, she reads fantasy stories like Peter Pan, Snow White, The Wizard of Oz and Where the Wild Things Are. Because she reads fantasy stories, she truly believes in creatures such as goblins and fairies. Even her stuffed animals are somewhat mystical. True, she does have the occasional teddy bear, but they are mostly strange creatures that could only have been thought up by Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and director of this movie.
The story begins as Sarah is unable to do what she wants because she has to babysit her baby step-brother, Toby and it is beginning to storm. She becomes very annoyed when she finds that Toby has one of her teddy bears, Lancelot. While she is watching Toby, he will not stop fussing. This just further annoys her. In a fit of childish rage and frustration, she wishes that goblins would come and take the child away from her and then proceeds to throw the crying baby in his crib. She turns off the light, and leaves the room. To her surprise, the crying suddenly ceases and the bedroom light will not turn on.
Immediately regretting her harsh words, she walks back into the room to see why Toby isn’t crying. Sarah is shocked to find that he is nowhere to be found. An owl then flies into the bedroom and transforms into the Goblin King, Jareth (played by David Bowie). When asked where toby is, Jareth tells Sarah, “What’s said is said,” and “he’s there, in my castle.”
Sarah then decides to journey to the Goblin King’s castle at the center of a labyrinth to retrieve her step-brother. Before even entering the labyrinth, Sarah makes her first friend, a goblin named Hoggle. Hoggle then proceeds to help her find her way through the labyrinth until he is threatened by Jareth himself. Jareth decides to let Hoggle go, but before he does, Jareth gives Hoggle an enchanted peach and tells him to deliver the peach to Sarah. Luckily, Sarah meets a beast-like character named Ludo. Ludo has the strange ability to summon rocks. Helpful right?
Sarah, Ludo, and Hoggle are finally reunited just in time to endure the Bog of Eternal Stench. The Bog is basically a swamp that smells really bad. Earlier in their film, Hoggle explains to Sarah, “If you put so much as a foot in the Bog of Stench you’ll smell bad for the rest of your life. It’ll never wash off.” They, of course, need to get to the other side of the bog. This is the part where Ludo’s ability comes in handy. He summons several boulders, which form a pathway, allowing the group of friends to safely cross the bog without setting foot in the smelly bog.
As they are leaving, the group befriends a small fox named Sir Didymus, who is strangely, riding dog like a horse. Sir Didymus joins them on their journey to the castle. After making it out of the bog, Hoggle hands the peach to Sarah. After taking one bite of the fruit, Sarah falls into a hallucinogenic state. In her hallucination, she finds herself at a masquerade ball where she is wooed by Jareth, who over the course of watching her fight her way through the labyrinth has fallen in love with her. Then, after realizing that the ball is all a part of her hallucination, Sarah smashes one of the mirrored walls with a chair.
The hallucination continues as Sarah finds herself in a junkyard. She enters the junkyard and finds in her room. A scary-looking old woman, who is essentially made of trash herself, appears and attempts to further distract Sarah by pointing out items in her room. Sarah’s room begins to cave in, filling her “bedroom” with garbage.
Sarah then wakes up from the hallucination and is met in the junkyard by Sir Didymus and Ludo (a regretful Hoggle ran away from the group in shame after handing Sarah the “poisonous fruit”.)
From the junkyard, the three of them reach the gate to the Goblin City, which surrounds the Goblin King’s castle. In the streets of the city, the goblin soldiers who were all hanging out in the castle, wage war on the fearless intruders. This is another time when Ludo’s ability comes in handy. He summons boulders which roll over some of the goblins. The remaining goblins run away in fear of the giant rocks rolling around all over the place.
Proceeding into the castle, Sarah decides that she must face Jareth alone. After an amazing scene which involves stairs that go in every possible direction, Sarah deliver the all-powerful line “Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is great. You have no power over me,” and suddenly, Jareth vanishes as Sarah finds herself back in her house with Toby asleep in his crib.
This film has great characters and, even though it was made in the eighties, I must say, the special effects are pretty great. In an online review a writer using the screen name crownroyal05, agrees, saying, “The whole look of the film from the Escher-styled sets to the Muppets themselves are fantastic. Quirky, offbeat, and reminiscent of the darkness surrounding the timeless fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.”
Did I mention the set design? In another online review, someone using the screen name nick7jq states simply “There are so many set elements and areas like bogs and junkyards,” and, “the visuals are still splendid to watch.”
In her New York Times article, Nina Darnton agrees. In fact she says “As he did with less success in ”The Dark Crystal,” Mr. Henson uses the art of puppetry to create visual effects that until very recently were possible to attain only with animation. The result is really quite startling. It removes storyboard creations from the flat celluloid cartoon image and makes them three-dimensional, so that they actually come alive and interact with living people. The technique makes animation seem dull and old-fashioned by comparison, and, in fact, the more exciting fantasy sequences in recent films have been created through special effects and advanced puppetry rather than animation.”
They are not the only people who think this. Charles Cassidy tells of Jim Henson’s astounding ability by explaining, “Beyond Muppets, director Henson turns a simple collection of human hands into a lively and expressive wall of faces when Sarah stumbles across their lair.”
Although some of the reviews that I read online reflect negatively upon this movie, all reviewers agree that the artistry of the film is very impressive.
In my opinion, this is, by far, one of the best movies ever made. I think Thomas Caldwell says it best when he explains how director of the film, Jim Henson, was someone, “Who really did make you believe that even as you got older, everything magical that you treasured from your childhood and all your imaginary friends were never too far away. Should you ever need them, for any reason at all.”
The Labyrinth 