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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 08/10/2008 : 22:55:25
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Luc Jacquet's latest, his first since the entrancing March of the Penguins, testifies to his continued love, respect for and fascination with wild animals. So given that and my own affection for foxes I was ready to take my inner four-year-old to the movies.
What a disappointment! Don't get me wrong, the fox - or I should say the foxes as I believe 10 were used in the film, some wild, some pets, some 'professional animals' - the foxes are gorgeous.
And Jacquet is very skilled at making the scenery [a combo of French, Italian, and Roumanian] transcend any visual cliches as a stunning freckle-faced 10-year-old decides she's going to befriend a wild fox she happens to see on her walks home from school.
And that's where the film gets into big trouble which isn't really resolved until the ending after the ending, which is way too late. The kid, Bertille No�l-Bruneau, is a natural in front of the camera, but her character as scripted is a frustrating combination of ignorance bordering on the retarded and a faux naivet� about animals that makes no sense for a child brought up on a farm whose parents obviously trust her to wander in the woods for hours on her own.
Did I mention those woods are full of wild animals besides Foxy-Loxy? We've got bears, badgers, eagles, lynxes - and those are the ones on show - we don't get to see the array of insects and snakes that may be lurking neath the leaf litter. And what do they have in common? They're all exceedingly hungry.
So maybe those parents need to be investigated for child neglect.
There are just too many of those kind of loose ends that never get addressed - in fact the kid is the only human we ever get to see. So there's wonderful nature footage hung around what is an ill-thought out idea of a child and fox making friends. That is not a movie, it's an idea that needs a story.
The kid's behaviour is not only inconsistent in relation to animals, it sends out really horrid messages. For example: after spending fruitless months trying to get the fox to come to her by shouting at it, "Come here," as it leaps away from this mad person ... it finally dawns on her that she might use food as an enticement. But as she shreds her sandwiches and scatters them on the ground like some demented Hansel and Gretel, a waddling hedgehog muscles in and mops up the grub. So what does the fox-obsessed kid do? She throws sticks at the poor hoggie to chase it away. That's a nice message for children -- it's okay to batter some animals.
And what about when she's obsessed with stroking this lovely creature and lures it close by tying a string around a bone and dangling it in front of the fox then pulling it toward her? The narration [nicely done by Kate Winslett in the English version] tells us that "it's okay to try." No no no! It is never okay to interfere like that - both for the fox and the risks involved. Another great message for children.
As to the scene where she manages to get the fox into her bedroom - well, the less said about that the better.
Honestly, it got to the point whenever the kid followed the fox into potentially dangerous landscape - leaping like mountain goats over gaps in the rocks that went down for miles or getting lost in a giant cave system - I kept wishing she'd die already and let the poor fox get on with its life.
It's very misleading as well because the scenes where the kid and the fox truly bond were all done NOT with the wild fox at all.
So, I read, we're supposed to take it all as some kind of mix of nature doco and fairy-tale. Why?!!! A lovely film about foxes would have done me just fine.
Yeah, some of you and your kids are going to love this. Bah Humbug I say to you. Bah! Humbug!
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Salopian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 08/11/2008 : 23:25:28
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I think you've got the wrong end of the stick with this. The girl's errors of judgment are made very clear as such in the end, to the extent that children could not be confused about the rights and wrongs. I also thought they were very realistic (not her degree of contact with the fox, but her naivety about the possibility). She is living in the countryside, but there's no evidence of it being a farm. Even if it were, it's simplistic to think that children growing up on farms have a uniformly no-nonsense attitide to animals. The risk-taking while roaming around is also very realistic.
I thought it made a very nice change to typical children's films, and even with the overly fat and overly tame foxes it is much more realistic than most. The dubbing could have been better (the English should have been spoken more softly) and the change from the first ending to the second ending is rather too unlikely, but it's very charming. I was amazed at some scenes, for example the lynx one, and the wolves one for that matter.
My biggest objection to the film is that it is a U (which should be suitable for typical four-year-olds). It should definitely have been a PG, especially as this would not actually restrict the potential audience but would just be a warning. Given that 'mild fantasy peril' in a cartoon is a reason for a film to be a PG, I was amazed that some of the scenes in this were not an equivalent basis. |
Edited by - Salopian on 08/11/2008 23:26:45 |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 08/12/2008 : 07:03:31
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Yeah, clear to you, maybe. Clear to me. NOT clear to little kidlets who may not even stay to the end, may be in the loo, whatever. The visual image of a kid petting a fox, romping with wild cubs, etc is for children far, far more powerful than a narration which doesn't show consequences.
Winslett reports being grounded - in fact I think a lot of the English reportage was changed from the original on the grounds that English and probably US culture couldn't either condone or let go without comment children given that kind of rural freedom more common at the beginning of last century. Point is, the introduction of punishment is the door to some kind of drama - so sorely missing throughout this movie. But there ain't any. It's left as a narrative.
What Jacquet did was spend two years getting wonderful shots and then ineptly tried to lace them together with a naff story.
BTW There's ample evidence the kid lives on a homestead and that there are animals around - whether it's a working farm or not. She doesn't come from a city.
There's enough evidence from the kids who live round here [just an hour from London] what they know and don't know about the risks involved with wild animals. The kid in the film behaves like a four-year-old or a retarded child.
She goes to school and unless she's really emotionally disturbed as a normal kid she'd be telling someone about her encounters. IF she has no friends - well, I'd say that was another door to drama. Another door which remains closed.
My main end of the stick was not about children and what we can or can't extrapolate - it's about the ill-thought out essence of the film. The script. The plotting. It's a mess. It's what I call 'a wouldn't be a good idea if' movie - they just didn't think it through.
Undoubtedly you will be incapable of not replying, but this is my last word because the film ain't worth any more of my time.
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 08/13/2008 : 01:55:52
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quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
BTW There's ample evidence the kid lives on a homestead and that there are animals around - whether it's a working farm or not. She doesn't come from a city.
There's enough evidence from the kids who live round here [just an hour from London] what they know and don't know about the risks involved with wild animals. The kid in the film behaves like a four-year-old or a retarded child.
Sure, it's obviously in the countryside, but just not a farm (the father's car doesn't look like a farmer's vehicle; the house is surrounded by a lake and very steep hills -- no room for fields).
I grew up in a semi-rural location (on the edge of a small market town). We played in the fields and woods and took risks all the time, e.g. balancing along very narrow walkways by fast-flowing rivers. That's well within the normal bounds of children. It's accurate that she would be afraid of wolves but not of foxes. Foxes will not attack people unless severely cornered and left with no other option.
On your previous point, yes, I was assuming that children would actually watch the whole film! This is a reasonable assumption in the cinema (the film is not unexpectedly long and the conclusion isn't in/after the credits), but I hadn't thought about D.V.D. (with also no adult present) -- that could be a bit of a problem. But if they actually watch the film, they really should get the message, even without the narration -- the visual message is very strong indeed in the bedroom scene. However (spoiler), I don't think the fox should have survived -- apart from being an unlikely turn of events, it does undermine the message a bit. |
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The Fox and the Child
