Meta: Labyrinth
May. 6th, 2008 07:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanalithWhen I was probably around 15, a friend of mine asked me what my favorite movie was. I opened my mouth to reply, and she quickly clarified that I could NOT choose what she considered my silly sci-fi movie series, such as Star Trek and Star Wars. It had to be a stand alone film. I’ll admit that I had to think about this for a while. Eventually, I threw out the name of a movie I loved, but I don’t think I truly believed it was my absolute favorite. It was lovely and haunting and fun, but I was still on my ST and SW kick and really couldn’t believe I would ever come to love anything as much as I did those movies.
The movie I tossed out to her was Labyrinth, and surprisingly enough, I soon discovered that I was right.
I’m not sure how old I was when I first saw Labyrinth, but I’m guessing I was about 13 or 14. It was during the summer, and it was at a friend’s house. I’d known her since I was about five years old, and I always came over to stay at her house once a week during the summer. (It was every Wednesday. Isn’t it funny what we remember?) Anyways, we decided to watch a movie that day, and we were having trouble deciding what to see. She eventually recommended Labyrinth, but she’d only seen it once and couldn’t really remember much about it. The one scene that stuck in her mind was when the main character fell down a hole and was caught by a bunch of talking hands. They asked her if she wanted to go up or down, and, since she was pointed down, she decided to continue her descent.
And that was all she could remember.
Needless to say, I was rather less than impressed, but as I had no better ideas, I agreed to it. I figured I could always drift in and out if it turned into a dud. Clearly, that was not the case.
For those of you who’ve never seen the movie, check here for a plot summary. Briefly, the main character, Sarah Williams, accidentally wishes her baby brother Toby over to the Goblin King, Jareth. In order to rescue him, Sarah must solve Jareth’s immense Labyrinth in 13 hours or less.
But the deep addiction, the passion, and the honest-to-God LOVE I now feel for this movie didn’t come until much later.
Honestly, I think this was because I was, in many ways, just like Sarah was portrayed in the movie. I was a simple child who didn’t know how to look at things other than at face value. I accepted it as a delightful movie that made me happy, but I saw none of the history behind it. In many ways, this movie is too clever for the average child to understand. If I ever taught an English class, I would analyze the crap out of this movie (not to mention the book!) Its roots in classical fairytales, in logic puzzles, in the very nature of how we deal with good an evil, are absolutely astounding! The movie isn’t even two hours long, and I see different things (and see old things differently) every single time!
If you’ve never watched the movie, I would recommend skipping this section, because there are going to be A TON of spoilers. I’ve been wanting to sit down and nitpick this movie for so long, and I’m just going to do it now, even if no one else gets any enjoyment out of it =P Also, I’m going to be referencing the novel occasionally, so having read that will help.
The movie starts out with your basic Evil Stepmother routine. Sarah hates the fact that her mother was replaced, but even more that her half-brother, Toby, has taken her father’s attention away from her. This is pretty clear. What I didn’t get at the time was that Sarah’s anger was based in a repressed confusion about her biological mother leaving. Linda basically abandoned both Sarah and her father for her handsome co-star, Jeremy. Sarah most likely convinced herself that this was because her father led such a boring life in comparison. In the beginning, Linda and Jeremy took her out places, bought her presents, etc., but that eventually stopped. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Sarah must have felt that this was her fault, that something was wrong with her, that she too had become boring. This was why she wanted so desperately to become an actress herself. That would surely get her mother’s attention! This idolized image of her mother never left her, even though it was Linda who was the true bad parent. Instead, Sarah reflected her anger and loss on her father and stepmother.
It took me several viewings before I realized that pretty much every character that Sarah meets in the Labyrinth are represented in her room. There are bookends shaped like Hoggle, a stuffed Firey, the M.C Escher stairway poster, etc. Her teddy bear was named Lancelot, which could easy represent Sir Didymus. Also, according to the novel, the music box with the dancer in it (which was a gift from Linda) played “Greensleves,” which was the song Sarah heard in the ballroom. This idea is probably a shout-out to Alice in Wonderland, as many of the creatures she encountered were reflections of people she knew in the real world.
The Labyrinth itself is a curious creature that I’ve always wondered about. As Sarah discovered, the maze is somewhat alive. It changes, and creates dead-ends where there were paths, and doorways at dead-ends. How much of this is Jareth’s magic and how much is because the maze is actually sentient is something that I still think about. Also, how different would the Labyrinth and its inhabitants be for different people? Since, as stated above, many things in the Labyrinth mirror Sarah’s real life, would everything and everyone change? Would Jareth (and the maze itself in some form) be the only constants? How much does it adapt to our own psyche? Also, what happened when Sarah defeated Jareth? One would assume he didn’t die (if he even could), so what happened? Can the Labyrinth survive without him, and vice versa? What’s their connection?
Another aspect I love to analyze is the relationship between Sarah and Jareth themselves. Sarah is a dreamer, a lover of fairytales and what I call golden romance (i.e. The prince rescues the princess and they live happily ever after.) In her basic, 15-year-old worldview, people are either Good or Bad. It’s very black and white. This entire experience is based on a book she read, and therefore she sees herself as the heroine and Jareth as the villain. Since there is no prince in sight, she must defeat the bad guy herself and rescue her brother. There was simply no other choice. But is Jareth truly evil, or was he forced into that role based on the world Sarah created? Assuming the Labyrinth and its inhabitants were shaped by her life and her mind, would Jareth not suffer the same fate?
Interestingly enough, these questions didn’t really start forming in my mind until I began to read fanfiction. While I normally consider fanfics to be an added bonus to a fandom, and of course are highly enjoyable, I very rarely come across a fandom where the fics themselves actively teach me more about the original book or movie. This was definitely the first.
Many fics portray Jareth as a fae, which I think is highly appropriate, since they love games. This would make him immortal, or very nearly, which presents its own set of interesting possibilities. How did Jareth become king of the goblins? Is it a prestigious position, or was he forced into it because he got on the wrong side of a higher authority? So many fics made me question what was real and what wasn’t, and what is permanent and what changes for each person who enters the maze. The possibilities are truly endless!
Probably one of the most talked-about scenes in the movie is the ballroom scene. Not only does David Bowie sing one of the most beautiful songs ever heard to mankind (I played it at my wedding, I love it so much!), but we get to see Sarah “grown-up” and we can let out fantasies run wild. My main question is this: What was the real point? Was Jareth just trying to make her lose time? And if so, why did he choose this particular way to do it? He could have just re-ordered time again, after all. Would have been quicker. No, this was different. This was seduction by design. In the novel, he even tries to steal a kiss. Putting aside the age difference, since 15 is hardly legal and sometimes squeaks people out, was this Jareth’s way of admitting he was falling for his adversary? Was he just trying to throw her off-balance? Or, if the entire journey was all a reflection of Sarah’s sub-consciousness, did she have a hand in creating this illusion? Was she the one falling in love?
As much as I love the above scene, my favorite will always be toward the end, in what fans have lovingly dubbed “The Escher Room.” This gravity-defying room filled with stairs was inspired by M.C. Escher’s drawing “Relativity,” the same sketch that Sarah had hanging in her bedroom. (I have it too, because I am a freak >_>) To this day I’m still trying to analyze not only the room, but the song Jareth sings in the movie, and the dialogue he employs in the novel. One might think that the room was a symbol of Sarah’s confusion, but at this point in the story she is very fixated on her goals. She wants her brother, and she’s willing to die to save him, as her jump at the end of the scene testifies. It could represent a last-ditch attempt by Jareth to buy time, but if that was the case, why put Toby in the room at all? Why not have him hidden so she couldn’t even see him? Perhaps seeing him moving on planes of existence she could not cross would daunt her so much that she would give up? This would seem unlikely.
The song itself is one of the shortest in the movie, but the lyrics are without question the most haunting and beautiful.
“How you turned my world, you precious thing
You starve and near exhaust me
Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you
I move the stars for no one
You’ve run so far
Your eyes can be so cruel
Just as I can be so cruel
Yes I do
Live without the sunlight
Love without your heartbeat
I can’t live within you”
The first and last stanzas are by far my favorite lyrics in the entire movie, and I think shed some light on some of our earlier questions. Jareth states that everything he’s done, he’s done for her. Later, he claims he is exhausted from living up to Sarah’s expectations of him. Does this confirm the theory that Sarah herself is dictating all her own obstacles in the Labyrinth, and that Jareth’s magic is connected to the Labyrinth and allows it to transform based on his opponent’s mind? If so, Sarah’s very active imagination may very well have provided Jareth with his most difficult challenge. She, herself, may have forced Jareth to make the Labyrinth into something far more ornate than it ever had been for anyone else. This may be what he means by “I can’t live within you.” He may be trying to tell her that he can no longer create her fantasies, and now she must do it herself. He may also be venting some anger at her childishness. He clearly sees her casting herself in the role of the injured princess and himself as the evil king, and this black and white vision of his world is most likely not what he would want her to see. His claim that he “moves the stars for no one” might be his way of telling her that he is done treating her as a unique opponent and is just ready for the entire ordeal to be over.
The dialogue in the book suggests that Jareth found Sarah to be a worthy opponent, but that she had clearly lost the battle. He also claimed she was as cruel as he was in her own way, which may have helped shatter her view of herself as the good, pure princess and him as the cold-hearted villain. If she indeed molded him along with the Labyrinth, then they would have been more alike than either probably would have liked to admit.
The final confrontation between Sarah and Jareth is one that I will probably never understand to my satisfaction. The “You have no power over me!” speech is fairly easy, of course. Assuming the Labyrinth was all her own creation, Sarah was finally able to take control of her own dreams. Previously, she had allowed them to overwhelm her. In the novel, Jareth accused her of beating the Labyrinth but not understanding any of the riddles she solved. In a way, I think that’s true, but this line proves to me that she understood the greatest lesson of all: Dreams and fantasies have their place, but if we allow them too much free reign, they will eventually trap and conquer us. Sarah’s actions when she returned home – tucking Toby into his crib and putting away her mother’s pictures and gifts – symbolizes that she understood that real life had to come first. She also came to understand that life wasn’t fair, and that was okay. It shouldn’t be a piece of cake at all. (To this day I shudder when anyone uses this idiom, because I’m paranoid something will go wrong, like the Cleaners will come out of nowhere or something >_>)
In many ways, it is Jareth’s words here that confuse me more than anything else in the show. He first claims that if Sarah allows him to rule her, she could have anything that she wanted. He then changes his tune and says the most famous line of the whole movie: “Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave!” What exactly did he mean by these statements? One would assume that he would never literally be Sarah’s slave, especially if he was an immortal fae king. Did he see fear and love as essentially the same thing? Did he even desire Sarah’s love? Was he just playing for time again?
The interesting thing is that, assuming Sarah did create the Labyrinth and did influence Jareth’s character to some degree, I think we can believe that this was the first time the Jareth was speaking *without* that influence. They stood among ruins, both their power essentially broken, both one step away from defeat. Sarah solved the Labyrinth but was out of time. One false move and either could win.
At that moment, what did Jareth want from her? (And by the way, he never once mentioned Toby, so I seriously doubt the kid was even on his mind.) As young as she was, did he want her even then? Or was he simply so fascinated with her that he wanted to examine her further, the way a child picks at an insect to see how it flies?
Curiouser and curiouser.
In the end, so much of this story is based on identity, on knowing who you are and what you want. Words actually speak louder than actions in this place. Sarah could never get a direct answer to a question unless she knew exactly what she wanted to know and could articulate it properly. And when she was in the junkyard! Watching her recognize that her childhood possessions (and by virtue of that, her childhood itself) was composed of nothing but memories…it still sends shivers up my spine! Like Sarah, I’m a packrat, and I hate to throw anything away that has any sort of sentimental value. But the present always has to be more important than the past, and she finally recognized that. The junklady told her that she couldn’t look where she was going if she didn’t know where she was going. Honestly, I think what she meant was that Sarah wouldn’t ever understand what she was doing if she didn’t understand herself first. She only remembered Toby when she realized she was surrounded by a junkyard of broken memories from a past that meant nothing. That’s a pretty awesome thought.
Three final questions: Why an owl? Was it to symbolize extensive wisdom? Night vision, perhaps, to indicate that he saw more than normal people? And why white? Definitely not for purity, that’s for sure and certain.
Where did the original Labyrinth book come from? Did Jareth send it to her, or was it a fairy story that just happened to come true? And what about the whole “The king of the goblins had fallen in love with the girl, and had given her certain powers” deal? If the book came from Jareth, had he already fallen in love with her? Was it all random?
And lastly, the door question. According to what I can understand of the Knights and Knaves puzzle by Raymond Smullyan, Sarah made the correct choice. This means that the oubliette was not certain death, despite the fact that she never would have gotten out of it without Hoggle’s help. What was beyond that hole, then? Would she have been right at the gates of the castle if she’d been able to jump it? Would she have died instantly if she’d got through the other door? Oh, the possibilities!!
I would say that probably 99% of Labyrinth fans are romantic at heart and see Jareth and Sarah as their OTP. (The other 1% ships Jareth and themselves, which is perfectly understandable. I just don’t need to read about it.) I’ll admit that for me, some of the intrigue falls simply into the “good girl/bad boy” genre. It’s sexy and fun, and I enjoy it. Seeing Jareth as a long-lived fae, however, adds another dynamic. Immortal beings suffer from a form of ennui that we mortals can never experience. (Ask any member of the Q Continuum, or any of the Greek gods.) Most people assume that Sarah was the first, last and only human to ever solve the Labyrinth. This must have driven Jareth completely NUTS! She defeated him at his own game, broke his power, won her brother’s freedom. She would have occupied his every though, every day, for a looooong time. For an immortal, curiosity is like ambrosia. If you live long enough, you come to understand everything, but I can guarantee you that Jareth would not have understood how a silly little slip of a human girl could beat a king at his own game. He would have fixated her like a cat on a mouse.
Is it all that much of a stretch for this kind of fixation to turn into an obsession? And honestly, picture yourself as an immortal fae king. Do you think you’d pretty much always get what you want?
Umm. Yeah. I’d say so.
On the other side, we have Sarah, a young girl with a love of fantasy, romance and fairytales. It’s not unlikely that she eventually came to romanticize him as a figure of mystery and magic. Also, he never hurt her, though he easily could have, and she did grow up and learn a lot about herself because of his tests. Whether for good or bad, she emerged from the Labyrinth a changed woman, and she would most likely have connected that directly with Jareth.
Plus, come on. The guy was HOT, he owned a palace, and could clearly make her every dream come true. It’s bloody hard to say no to that!!
Seeing Jareth and Sarah reunite and live, if not happily ever after, then at least ever after, is one of the main reasons I began reading and writing fanfiction. While some do favour the “evil Jareth” POV, I’m definitely a romantic at heart. As always there is a lot of crap out there, so I’ll recommend a few of my absolute favorites. Note that all of them are rated "adult" for sexual situations:
A Necessary Deception, by Scattered Logic: This is by far my favorite Labyrinth fanfic of all time, and is responsible for a lot of the analysis you see above. In this fic, Sarah returns to the Labyrinth to find that everything...and everyone...has changed almost beyond recognition. What was truth and what were lies? Some of the best original characters in the fandom are found here.
A Forfeit of Dreams, by K.L Morgan: Sarah returns to the Labyrinth to save the life of a friend, and while there she discovers more about Jareth than she ever thought possible. This fic just blows my mind, especially the Venice-dream sequence.
The Enticement, by Scattered Logic: An unintentional bargain with the Labyrinth itself brings Jareth into the mortal world. In order to return him, Sarah must determine what she truly wants.
And honestly, you could pick any fic at Digital Quill and be more than satisfied, I assure you.
Oh, and I totally 100% recommend reading the novel, by A.C.H. Smith. It is probably the best novelization of a film I've ever read in my life, AND you get the addition bonus of extra dialogue during the scenes where David Bowie is singing in the movie!
At the end of the day (and after six pages of analysis o.0) what really draws me to this movie is its endless cycle of possibilities. As soon as I look at one thing in a different light, everything else shifts as well. It’s like a logic puzzle, where if Aequals B, then C suddenly equals E instead of D, and so on. There’s so much room to play in this world, because you can interpret things however you want and no one can really tell you that you’re wrong. At the same time, what’s hidden behind the 80’s cult classic veneer is a movie steeped in fairytales, but where we discover that good doesn’t always conquer evil, because good and evil aren’t really polar opposites. What matters is how we view the world, not necessarily what the world is. This movie also won my eternal love for David Bowie, whose style of music is not at all what I normally listen to, but I now love to death because it’s him, and his voice just sends shivers up and down my spine whenever I hear it. It’s a force of magic all on its own. I also found a deep love of M.C. Escher and his gravity-defying artwork. I’m not generally a fan of actually art art, so this was rather big for me as well. Plus, look at my journal itself! It’s 100% Labyrinth based now, and I love it. When I paid for a commissioned layout, I knew I wanted something I would never get tired of, an obsession that would never, ever fade. There was no question that Labyrinth was the best answer.
In any event, I can promise you that this is one movie you will never, ever forget. Watch it. I’ve honestly not ever met anyone who has and did not fall head over heels in love with it.
Oh, and if you read this far...you deserve a medal. For serious.
."Things are not always what they seem in this place, so you can't take anything for granted."