Where the Wild Things Are

Our conversation-beginning today about Alice as a "very sensible 7-yr-old, @ stage of development/education where the world appears completely explainable and unambiguous" reminded me strongly of the recent film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. Like Alice, Where the Wild Things Are is an exploration of a seven-year-old's conflicted and often chaotic dreamworld, in which all of the characters can be seen as reflections of the main child's personality; unlike Alice, though, Where the Wild Things Are depicts seven as a terrifying age to be, one at which nothing is explainable or unambiguous. Both movies push against the idea of "permanent self-identity," but Where the Wild Things Are plays on a different educational setting and a different take on what it means to be a child.

In Where the Wild Things Are, the link between Max's "real life" and his dream world is perhaps more obvious, as is the cause-effect and character development-oriented story structure, but the film might still be useful as a further exploration of what to do with immersive dream narratives.