An Argument for 'Arthouse' Family Films

As three illustrious words from the mouth of Guillermo del Toro have echoed throughout recent film discourse, the respect and reverence for peerless artists and storytellers has reverberated within the minds of the perhaps once reluctant believers: “Animation is cinema”. Just as the fish sex movie man proclaims, an excitement and appetite for new stories, styles, genres and voices has stormed the multiplex, wielding peg bars, rigs and a plethora of puppets. Films such as ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ and the upcoming ‘Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’ have tipped their hats (and bandanas) to Spidey, preferring audacious artistry over a menial, corporate sheen. And although they may seem like a withering craft, stop motion and 2D have been clinging to niche audiences; gore hounds were recently served up the squelchy ‘MAD GOD’, whilst ‘Wolfwalkers’ fused luscious Irish folklore with a tinge of Miyazaki-esque magic. The medium continues to prove that it is for everyone. However, between the binaries of family and adult, young and old, indie and mainstream, a recent, conch- like grey area has emerged, leaving many in a collective state of head scratch and muttering “This is a kids film…right?”.

‘Marcel the Shell with Shoes On’ is a stop motion/ mockumentary hybrid, with director Dean Fleischer Camp in a self-reflexive role, interviewing and uncovering the story of our crustaceous hero Marcel, as he attempts to reunite with his family of other anthropomorphised apparel. To put it simply, the film is a delight. It oozes with personality, emotion and honesty, portrayed through such an earnestly creative lens. I was in shell ecstasy; a smile smeared across my face and the occasional droplet in my eye. Cinema! But through the swads of lavish praise, something occurred to me. Adult tones are nothing new to animated family films. Sure Helen and Bob “got busy” and Farquaad may have been compensating for something, but the entire aura of ‘Marcel’ is different. It’s very dry, with the understated quietness of the humour and often introspective exchanges of dialogue. There are jokes and references to ‘Sixty Minutes’, and an underlying improvisational inflection. Despite it’s PG rating and cute aesthetic, more disgruntled film goers within the depths of IMDB and Letterboxd user reviews have branded it as less for families, and more for twentysomething, New York Times reading film students, unfortunately slapping it with bygone, zombified labels dug up from 2010: ‘mumblecore’, or god forbid….’hipster’.

“How would a child react to this?”, a faint voice sounded in the back of my mind. I can certainly see younger audience members being enraptured by the technical wizardry on display, as well as Marcel’s world of household contraptions and homemade transport devices, but would it retain their attention or understanding? I'm sure cineaste young'uns are out there, but as Marcel monologues about loneliness, a figment of a restless eight year old may materialise in one’s subconscious, tugging at a parental sleeve for a babbling minion rather than a melancholic mollusc. However, this conundrum made me reminisce on my own similar experience with another stop motion animation. One similar in style, tone and voice, also somewhat maligned as hipsterism. Something a lot more symmetrical.

As my eight year old self sat down eagerly for ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ in 2009, something felt…weird. The Dahlian was traded for the Andersonian; the idiosyncratic visuals, the archaic twang of the score and of course the introvertedly academic sound of the speech was something my immature brain wasn’t ready for. Although, I was overall entertained. I was amused by the slapstick and it’s jerky, stop motion charm, but confused and alienated by something so seemingly ‘adult’. Despite it’s immense critical praise, many reviewers (infamously Mark Kermode) interpreted ‘Mr. Fox’ ‘s smartness for one of smugness, as if Wes Anderson and co were in on some big joke of making an arthouse picture, but disguised as accessible, family fare.

However, after my first viewing, I was still intrigued. And with anything strange and unusual, I wanted to decipher it. After many rentals of the vulpine video and countless rewatches over the years, I gradually, slowly, started to get it. The deadpan awkwardness of the humour became funnier and funnier. I started to vibe with the classic Wes framing, and it all culminated a few years back with the ultimate understanding: ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ doesn’t employ it’s intellectual tone just for show, but expertly weaves it into it’s theming. It’s animal characters desperately strive to be sophisticated, talking and acting like Clooney and Streep themselves, but cannot inevitably cannot escape their animalistic nature. I feel this is an entire step above having a knowing chuckle at the dirty jokes that were once lost on you as a child, but uncovering a whole new underbelly of meaning, changing something once deemed as charmingly obscure, to one of real reverence and new appreciation. And the most amazing thing is that it was there all along, but you just didn’t know it yet.

2009 was fourteen years ago, making ‘Mr Fox’ now a nostalgic artefact, a prime window of time for it’s previously young viewership to rediscover it, potentially uncovering the true greatness of this ‘kids’ film as an adult. I can see ‘Marcel the Shell with Shoes On’ working in an exact same way for an entirely new generation. I think it’s a real marvel that these films can have the ability to mature and age over time, whilst also correlating to the growth of the audience themselves. Not to say the more mainstream animated family films don’t have that years long rewatch value; the subtleties and commentaries within ‘The Incredibles’ or ‘The Iron Giant’ resonate with me more now than they did fourteen years ago. But it’s just that stigma that perhaps parades the more indie auteurs, seemingly out of touch or (here comes another 2010 label) ‘pretentious’. ‘Marcel’ has staying power, and I think kids are lucky to have it.