The DVD Fairy

You might guess from my earlier summary of the film that this might open with a night terror or something similar, but that’s not the case. The setup is, despite being telling instead of showing in most cases, pretty well done, and we get a lot of information just from the way things are said and presented to us. Here we have Dorothy Gale, here played by Fairuza Balk, whom you may remember from things like The Craft and The Waterboy. In the first moments of the film we see her staring listlessly out the window (through the reflection in her mirror, oddly, and this may be significant later), until her Aunt Em comes in, here played by Piper Laurie, whom most of you will remember as Carrie’s mother in Carrie.

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to– ah nevermind.

The clues that we get that Dorothy hasn’t been sleeping comes in the conversation.

“Can’t you sleep? It’s past 1 o’clock in the morning, Dorothy.”

“Aunt Em? I wish I could put my head on my paws and go to sleep like Toto.”

“Soon you will.”

This tells you pretty much all you need to know. Dorothy can’t sleep, and you can tell this has been an ongoing problem just through this little exchange.

I also really just love the “I wish I could put my head on my paws” line because it’s such a clever way of communicating what the problem is and how it’s affecting Dorothy. You can really hear she’s exhausted and wishes she could sleep but has no control over it.

We also get an indication of what “soon you will” means, as we shift to Uncle Henry, looking on and then eying a newspaper clipping in the next room.

Thanks to this, we have a setup without much need for dialogue to explain it. There will be discussion about it – Henry doesn’t understand why they should pay out money they don’t have so some doctor with an unproven new method of healing can prod at their niece, whom they have only recently found again after she disappeared during the twister. (There were reportedly deleted scenes of Uncle Henry going over saved newspaper clippings relating to her earlier disappearance; he feels protective of her. He doesn’t want to send her away.)

Aunt Em makes it clear this isn’t up for discussion. Dorothy hasn’t slept proper in the 6 months since the tornado and she talks about a place that doesn’t exist.

We hear this as Dorothy listens, feeling troubled, and it’s a nice, “quiet” moment for her (despite talking happening in the other room) where we can wonder on what she must be thinking, hearing her guardians speak of things she’s “doing” but can’t conceivably stop.

I like it because I like moments where they show children being aware of the problems adults have, even aware of their contribution (or lack thereof) to a problem.

Outside her window, there is a shooting star. Dorothy and Toto take notice, as this foreshadows the events that will move us forward.

Damn, I just got chills.

Okay, so this movie represents a very unusual sort of nostalgia for me. This isn’t just “OMG I WATCHED THIS WHEN I WAS WEE” for me. It’s not fandom in the same way that the Aladdin TV Series is and was fandom for me.

This movie is one of many that I watched when I was a baby, and beyond my love for the film itself, it’s nostalgic because I can remember how I experienced the movie as a toddler.

I was born in ‘84, so I was two when this hit home video. That’s pretty far back to remember (and I retain a lot of memories from my early years), but let me explain you a thing. When I say I remember how I experienced this movie, I mean that my two year-old brain took apart the details in the movie in a completely different fashion than it does now 26 years later. Music and sound, for instance, had more of an impact on me because I didn’t fully comprehend what they were in the context of the story being shown to me. I didn’t always know what a sound effect was doing or what it was meant to represent so it always stuck out to me as something ambient, atmospheric, even. When I saw shapes or objects that I did not recognize, I would focus on them intently, trying to work out just what they were. (With certain unrecognizable shapes and textures and colors I always thought “food” over anything else – which makes sense. First thing a baby does when they get hold of something is put it in their mouth.) I noticed faces in things that I probably wouldn’t have noticed now.

So yes, when I watch this movie, even though I’m seeing it as an adult, I can remember what my brain was doing when I used to watch it as a two year-old. I do this with a LOT of movies and old TV shows, like the live action Masters of the Universe movie, Willow, Disney’s Pinnochio and Flight of the Navigator, some of the old MLP specials, Care Bears, etc. I will do my best not to gum up the liveblog with too many of these observations, but I love talking about this.