Post
by Mr. Tweedy » Fri Jan 23, 2009 2:55 pm
Very interesting story!
First off, let me say that the production here was stellar. The music set the perfect mood or tension and mystery. I especially loved the voice of the fairy. Making a creature of shadow and starlight sound mechanical works perfectly, because such a creature would have no "real" voice, no larynx, and its speech would be bloodless and synthetic. The fairy doesn't speak words, it generates them. Fairy voices are often described as "tinkling" or like the sound of bells, and what you did here is take that idea–the idea of the fairy sounding like a thing–and made it menacing instead of cute.
The production really made this story, I think. I don't think I would have appreciated it nearly as much without the thick eerie atmosphere that the audio created.
The story itself is just fascinating. We have all these stories about children being whisked off to magical realms, and it's usually portrayed as an unequivocally good thing. Peter Pan flies in through the open window and leaves with all the children... It never struck me before, but how creepy is that? Even in Narnia: The kids vanish into a magic portal and forget who they were? In that story, the magical world is so compelling that they live as king and queens for 15 or 25 years and don't even think about the fact that they used to live in a different world.
This story really captures the flip-side of the magical world story. The characters are drawn into someplace that's strange and fantastic, but for that to happen they must necessarily be drawn out of the "real" world. What happens back in London if Wendy decides to stay in Neverland? What if the Pevinsies never come back out of the wardrobe? How do muggle parents feel when their kid gets a letter from Hogwarts? From the perspective of an outsider, Peter Pan is just a kidnapper, isn't he? A kidnapper with superpowers that can thwart any security.
So, yeah, I thought this was pretty deep. Is the fairy evil? Well, we don't really know, do we? We know that he's scary. He comes into houses and takes children from their beds. He gets into your head and messes. You can't stop him or contain him. He doesn't ask permission. He's terrifying, but is he bad? Well, that rather depends on your perspective, doesn't it?
Epic win.
Advertise in this space!