Triple A Movie Review: A Monster Calls (2016), A Movie About the Growth of a Boy
Before I watched this movie, I saw this movie’s poster firstly. I thought it was a horror movie or monster movie. After I watched it, I made a big mistake. In this movie, the director J.A. Bayona uses the tree monster, which is a giant humanoid yew tree, in the dream as a teacher in the real world. The boy, named Connor O’Malley always dreams this tree monster. Although I call it monster, in this movie, this giant tree act as a teacher for little Connor to help him comfort and release his fear and depression in his life. I have to say that this movie is more like a fairy tale for children. Through this movie, the little boy Connor starts to grow up from a boy to a man. This tree help him to complete the ritual of male spiritual transformation. st also completes the ritual of male spiritual transformation.
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In this movie, the little boy dreams of the tree monster at 12:07 am or pm. When he is sleeping at this time, the tree monster will come to his dream. In the reality, his grandmother, father and mother continues died when he is growing up. During the time of his close relatives being dying, the tree monster will come to his dream and tells him several story. Through these story, the tree monster teaches him how to deal with struggles and puzzles about family love or any other difficulties. With the help of the tree monster, Connor starts to face these difficulties and tries to solve these problems by himself. Finally, he makes it. Once he makes it, he is becoming from a little boy to a mature man.
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This movie, “A Monster Call”, can be said that this is a Hollywood-style personal children growth story. However, in this movie, it contains Spanish-style magnificence and singularity. We can easily conclude that through the stories told by the monster tree. In the stories, the watercolor animation shows the boy’s spiritual world in his age. I have read other’s movie reviews, some reviewers believe that the image of the monster tree is a substitute of the role of father. It make sense. However, from my perspective, I think that the image of the tree monster is more like a teacher. In the little boy Connor’s dream, the monster tree inspires him through supernatural fairy tales. The monster tree teaches the boy how to be couragous and knowledgable. The way of teaching the boy makes me feel like that the monster tree is a teacher.
For this question, what is the image of the monster tree? Some many audiences gives some different answers. The movie does not give us the answer. The movie tell this story in a symbolic way. It is very difficult to directly tell us the answers. In this movie, the parents of the Connor have been divorced for so long time. Connor is living with his mother. In his family relations, there is no father role in his life. Hence, some reviewers believes that the image of the tree monster is the role of father. As I mentioned in the previous, it truly makes sense. From the movie, when the little boy Connor hears that his father will visit him, he is very exciting. Moreover, he really enjoys playing with his father in the playground. From this point, although his father is not always being with him, his father is still there. Thus, I believe that he does have the father and he has father love. I prefer to believe that the image of the tree monster is the role of the teacher, who helps him to healthily grow up. Finally, this is really a very meaningfull movie. But it might be boring because there are a lot of stories ang symbloic elements in this movie. As a audiences, you have to pay more attention on this details, otherwise it is sort of boring.
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※ 리뷰 하단에 다음 두가지 항목 포함 필수 (미포함 시 차후 자체사이트에 반영 안됨)
Movie URL: (https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/258230-a-monster-calls?language=en-US)
Critic: (AAA)
영화 URL: (https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/258230-a-monster-calls?language=ko-KR)
별점: (AAA)