A Late-Viewer’s Review of Where the Wild Things Are

In this review I will not attempt to rate this film. I don’t mean to grade Where the Wild Things Are by any cinematic/aesthetic/critical scale, so I’ll leave that to the slew of critics who will watch all movies on their superficial level. Underneath the furry hides lies a semblance of childhood that isn’t quite fondly recalled.

The last thing to fade from our memory is light. A wrestling match amongst the bed sheets when we were seven is fused with the light coming through the window and through the sheets in our older minds, but there is a moment, probably forgotten, when one child has overpowered the other and there is an intensive fear of not being able to breathe. Max is thrust is similar situations three times in the movie: play gone too far, all air passages blocked and a tell-all panicked expression on his face while his arms move in frenzy to escape the deadly embraces. The moments in this movie force audience members to review their sun-spotted memories with that unsettling addition. He was playing too rough and I could not breathe.

The funny thing about Max is his ambivalence towards being eaten, perhaps an unconscious confidence in his immortality, or even, his ignorance about mortality and all that it entails. He is however very scared of being abandoned, a feeling he knows very well and abhors. He feels a need to impress the wild things so they will not leave him. The all-encompassing concern is not necessarily to rule, that being a more adult-like concern, but to simply be accepted. In the social circle of Wild Things, Max picks out a mother figure, another creature very similar to himself and a rivalrous, sibling-like character. The father-figure is markedly absent where the Wild Things are since, as it is a sort of parallel universe, Max hasn’t a father in real-life. His mind has constructed something vastly different from reality, yet is inspired by reality. His fantasy proves to be much more susceptible to reality the longer it plays out: families fight, friends lose trust in you and forts get destroyed, most frequently, by someone who helped you build it.

The end of fantasy is inevitable, so Max returns home to a mother anxiously waiting for him. The audience is then thrust into the mother’s shoes as we get a sense of the heartbreak she must have waited with and how terribly sad and wonderful it is that Max is totally oblivious to it.

I see this movie as an attempt to paint the true divisions between adulthood and childhood. Adults tend to view children as beings living out a sort of psuedo-life where only good things happen and any expression of pain is due to the child’s over-active imagination.

(To tie in with a point I was making earlier, this perception is probably thanks in part to our shoddy memories.)

Children are completely ignorant to things adults have a better mental grasp of: primarily mortality. They simply cannot know what shoving against the parent’s embrace does to the parent’s heart. It is the parent that can abandon them, the child, not the other way around.

In attempts to explain these dynamics, Spike Jonze takes a rather surrealist approach. There are hints of Oedipal complexity and World-of-the-Mother, but the most telling surrealist property is the dream-like execution of the plot. That is to say, there isn’t really a plot. Things do not happen for any real, coherent reason. Events are meant to mirror the anxieties Max feels in reality. Seeking “organic unity” within Where the Wild Things Are is a moot point, unless you happen to be Sigmund Freud.

That said, I’m afraid this review may reveal certain aspects of myself to strange readers, but I mean, I can’t claim any empirical objectivity when I review something. So go ahead: psychoanalyze me bitch.

Jonze… what do you mean to say? For I heard, “Ignorance isn’t bliss, and we are all children in the face of death.”

My dear, dear wooden heart

A face I remember still on the Polaroid lens

Capturing musky sunshine and wheatgrass

Flushing seamlessly with your hair for it is the same color

As my bedroom walls

As my blood

As my lips, your lips, what we drew from each other

The color running through our tremulous chambers

Left paint on our teeth

My Revlon.

Oh my love

How unconsciously you tortured my generous arms

The black and blue

The rivets of salt water the fountain of youth.

Now maple syrup, amber eyes sings to me softly out of tune

Ever above me, always above me your cheekbones hide the moon.

We eat at a diner under a silent freeway

And I let you have my eggs

On your bed next to the propane heater

We tremble and lie still.

Still my pale palm searches the pillow for your tresses.

While I sleep my cheek feels the flutter of your lashes

While I dream I see you kneeling

You gaze upon your ivory tower

It’s chipped pedicure its corseted flesh

And I cry at the climax realizing I am only a fetish.

In the only photo of us we are sitting in a tree.

I am smiling.

I am happy.

Your face is covered with leaves.

For the past three years or so, I’ve flirted with running a bit. Here and there, on the weekends. Initially to prevent myself from yelling at my father in high school and beat away some rage (so I have this thing against beating pillows. I like the feathers INSIDE), running became a go-to for stress relief my senior year. There was a mile-long stretch behind my house that gradually ascended to a massive water tank at the edge of highway 50.

When I moved to New York, I ran occasionally. Running in Central Park was nice but at times pretentious. I mean, I was running with people who sailed ten miles or so for laughs. Who walked around with futuristic goggles because that’s how fast they went (apparently). AND THEN there was the walk back to my apartment, covered in sweat, shirt and shorts conforming to every curve and a construction worker isn’t going to pass that up. Hell no, he’s going to whistle and harass with everything he’s got. Awesome.

While in New York, my running moved indoors. On the treadmill.

In the past year or so I’ve dropped it, than picked it up again, than forgot about it, than remembered “Hey… that thing I used to do that made me move faster. Maybe I should get into that again.”

But last month, for a birthday present, I received some new running shoes. And now I cannot stop. I’ve geeked out on running my friends. I pick up fitness magazines. I read research on training techniques. I look up half-marathon dates and spend hours creating playlists to complement the perfect run. I browse sporting good stores.

I browse sporting good stores. God damn.

At any rate, my future now incorporates the following: A master’s degree at a college with a huge green that I can run around. A string of vacations organized around major marathons. Adopting a Siberian husky that can keep up with my stride. Finding a man with calves just as sexy as mine.

Horizontal Inspiration. That’s what its all about.

My other shoes, by the way, are going here: http://shoe4africa.org/sendshoes.htm

Now if you’ll pardon me, I need to discuss Freud’s theory of the “uncanny,” attend a critical theory class, blah blah blah… and RUN INTERVALS!!!!! Yes.

(I am tipsy).

I only just stumbled on you, remembering (once again), that I HAVE A BLOG and it has been left on the side of a metaphysical road where poems perish before a reader has a chance to come along to discover it. Remembering never comes too late, I believe, in a world full of similes. Like, I was so like busy, as busy as I could possibly be you know, so like, SORRY and all that but I’m here now so let’s party.

It really is too bad that I met up with you while buzzing about with various alcohols, because for the first time in my life, I not only have a clear goal of what I am doing, but a clearer view of who I am with all my subconscious insecurities and parent-less confidence. If I were in a more, say, sober state I might delve into the recent books I’ve read, or the recent observations I’ve made, or perhaps a chapter from An Exaggerated Dreamscape of Metropolitan Stereotypes which I’m sure all of you remember.

Instead let’s look at the lady that just left the counter. She is wearing mesh walking shoes with a red poly-blend dress. Her hair is short and brown with her bangs pushed back with her Oakley sunglasses. Allow me to fill you in on what she just said to the barista:

Lady in Red: “I bet I have more friends than you.”

Barista: “Hm. Can I get anything for you?”

LiR: “I have more money than you.”

Barista: (blank stare.)

LiR: “It must suck to have to take a job. I have so much money I don’t have to take a job. It must suck being where you’re at.”

Barista: “Truly. And how is being an unemployed bitch working out for you?”

LiR: “I want a large white mocha.”

Barista: “K. That’s $4.31.”

LiR: (Hands Barista  a card)

Barista: (Runs card.)

(Awkward silence and upward glance.)

Barista: “Can I see your card again? It declined.”

LiR: “Why would I run my card again if it declined?”

Barista: “It must be the modem. You have so much money.”

Lady in Red pulls out a small camera, takes a panorama of the coffee house then leaves.

I’m sorry, but I must take advantage of the particularly wacked customers I come across.

I need some water. I’ll keep your ear just in case.

A stem grows to hold the cherry one day

The cherry grows the natural follower and the first comer breaks

Both fall, fall the mother and the child

The grass catches the bruises and the tears from the night

Dewy and new pink eyes search desperately for sunrise

Shoot the sky on your back

The kaleidoscope sky clicks the stars into place

The gears in my mind will take forever to see the present

I remember what you said I remember what you said before you said it

Has happened before the stars and the dew curling stems

The growing the present growing making a dent in rational dissonance

How gentle the drug I have so far to fall

Falls the child cherry blossom pink eye-lidded fawn

Mother you’ll discover before I’ve time to recover

Dammit! You’ll cry!

No, no I’ll lie.

Simply lie here while the stars shift heaven around

Fingers white with moonlight caress the heartbeat of the ground

Let me love you both. Let me run from and be the hunter of all I learned before

I shake my bough I shake it hard I write your lessons from my bones

And when I fall mother stem

Know I eventually return to you

A tree of my own.

Being the logical person that I am, I never took to astrology, though I managed to find myself in the arms of many a man who took it as seriously as the weather report. Out of my oft-lauded tolerance, I listened to **** explain to me in great depth what my sign entailed and what I (unbeknownst to me!) want out of life. Thanks to his lessons, I now have a general idea what this whole “Leo” thing is about, though this new knowledge did little to convince me of astrology’s legitimacy, thus negating the knowledge.

But lately I have met a barage of patrons who insist upon knowing me by nothing else, as if knowing my birthday is the key to KNOWING ALL. I have grown used to the question and have refrained from lying because fucking with people’s minds is just wrong on general principal, but today, I discovered that the birthday is not the only indicator of astrological signature.

He approached the counter, looked at my face, started, then said something to the effect of, “Your eyes! Virgo?”

Which left me with the new found fear that astrological fanatics more observant than he have the ability to deduce my sign without even knowing my birthday. While I was wondering what the fuck my eyes had to do with Virgo, I answered, “No. Do you… want some coffee? Tea?”

“You’re not a Virgo?”

“No.”

“That’s funny.”

We stared at each other in silence. I was searching his face for some insight into his prescription. The audacity it takes to inform a total stranger of their personality traits and personal quirks. To stab at the dark by the light of someone else’s eyes.

As if on cue, a co-worker flipping through a magazine walked in and asked me loudly, “You’re a Leo right? Do you want to hear your destiny?”

“Actually, apparently I’m a Virgo.”

The man across the counter squinted at my eyes as if there was something he had missed, and I wanted to tell him that far from my time of birth, he had missed a lot of things.

[I wrote these for a series to appear in a poetry book to be published in the near future. Details on this book's availability will be revealed once I know what to tell you.]

1.  Crossing 50th and 3rd on October 15th 2006. Suddenly incandescently happy.

2. The rocks at the bottom of the pool sparkle gold at sunrise. The muscles of his back capture the groves of the sun. The temperature of the water doesn’t even matter.

3. My true love in unconsciously heartless. I cannot sit still- I cannot sleep. I move only in restless hate.

4. The pulsing power of costly, foreign horsepower roars beneath me. The man driving smiles and moves closer. I am unmoved.

5. This is the scene: Shelby’s diabetic attack. I am Shelby; the audience nonchalant while I shake uncontrollably and spill orange juice on the stage floor.

6. “I feel like this has happened before.” “It has,” he said. “And it will again.”

7. Honolulu is wet with rain. Three of us walk to the water and watch the moon rise and sailors flood the shore.

8. The stretch of salt flats on the way home is a foggy wasteland. I told him “I’m not tired at all.” I drive through the fog and he sleeps on my shoulder.

9. Dancing alone on a dusty green carpet to a tremulous violin. I am caught – I am high – the leap! The fall… searing pain through my ankle while the music soars on without me.

10. I have a window seat this time. Too much of my young life has been spent on planes. The chassis shakes as we leave the runway and I think, “Here we go again.”

11. At 2 a.m. I get off work. My black pencil skirt wrinkled; my heels flaming torture. The new bartender follows me home. He kisses me by surprise. I let him.

12. Oh! I is such a relief to cry. The wound in my heretofore guarded core rake me with guilt. I cry and cry as I never have before.

13. While walking home one night after school, I realized I don’t believe in god. The stars were bright and everything was clear.

14. We fuck as if we choreographed this before; all passion perfectly synchronized. But his mind remains a mystery to me.

15. My heart is racing; body starving; no desire for food – feeling pitifully beautiful. Now I understand.

16. Lingering around Greenwich village, I cling to the people migrating from lounge to lounge. All of us are homeless. Our facade: designer dresses and lips red with wine.

17. A hallway filled with lights. A small finger – mine – points overheard. The shoulders carrying me are strong. This is my first memory.

18. Cigarettes and coffee – the two of us laughing. “Before this,” he said, “When I was ten they brought you home from the hospital. I held you first.”

19. Sleeping still into the afternoon, I guiltily burrow deeper drifting in and out of dreams until the sun sets.

20. This death is different. This death unexpected; initiated by unfathomable pain. I hold his hand through the funeral, staring ahead. I only see fire.

I have a bad habit of promising my presence at social gatherings when my presence should probably be caste in loneliness in front of a computer screen hashing out my thesis on Self Reliance.

This next gathering however is easily justified despite the portfolio due tomorrow. A good friend of mine has been frantically painting for the last week, pausing momentarily only to dip cookies in milk and talk to his mentor at the tap house. So he’s been busting his ass, and I cannot in good consciousness tell him, “Your art show sounds fascinating, but I have (cough) really important stuff going on. Stuff that rhymes with dinals and involves my GPA, aka “The Decider.” So, just, you know, put on another one sometime and I’ll be sure to show.”

THE PROBLEM lies in my timetable. If the timetable was a can of 7up, it would self-combust. I’ve resigned to staying up all night.

Praise be to his noodly appendage for landing me a job in a coffee house where caffeine is readily abundant.

(Must admit that I have surpassed a healthy tolerance level for espresso. I’ve taken to just snacking on the beans straight, and sometimes I sneak the left-over grinds in the back room, line them up on a bar stool and snort them.)

I hope to see you in the morning.

Imagine for a moment there was only one choice after the cold light of morning opened both of your eyes right where you lay. Imagine you could only stay. Would we be happy?

And then there were footsteps echoing around the whitewashed hall; high-heeled mother of god full of Aderrall spacing the day as professionals will with points for time and pens for points and black eyes like lasers.

Giddy still from our silver, stoned orgasm making point to think of anything else, we feel nothing else but the temple of change. Keep hands from in between your legs.

I have a song for you but I break when I sing it.

Patchy sidewalks keep our arms locked holly and ivy past the first sunset and last chance to fall without utter destruction.

I see you now not knowing how I’ve seen you before but it’s true.

The headphones instruct her mouth to move avec moi, avec moi. Keep true and a new direction will grant you passage to a sunny cottage with fresh cheese and a rusty-colored bicycle. Keep true to the new words. Professionals will.

In the dream he is smaller. In my dreams he is much, much smaller.

I think in fiction it is my tranquilizer it gives me the buffer against your harder observations. The half-formed reality love; harder to swallow but we must have more! We must have more! Pointing where you lay silver tongued and hungry! Clouding and the number nine avec moi!

Presently so intent on revenge. In all, living gracefully.

When I find myself second guessing my “career choice,” I softly remind myself that my years at school are but suggestive interfaces to help me find a passion that truly sets my house ablaze. I have not settled yet on anything.

I have decided that the method of journalism instruction is being outdated by the moment. I’m being taught from a model that will not exist in two years. It would probably benefit me more to run around the blogsphere than to attend certain lectures

Blunder! Blunder!