Top 25 Favourite Films: #22 Labyrinth (Dir. Jim Henson,1986)
#22. Labyrinth. Directed by Jim Henson, 1986
It's the mid 2000s, and my father is listening to an album he's got out of the local lending library; the cover is a sepia-toned image of a man, hair slicked back, well-suited, staring off into the distance with stars in his, what I eventually find are mismatched, eyes. The album is a 2002 record, Heathen, and I have just listened, off in the background, to David Bowie for the first time. Over the next 15 years, I will discover the rest of Bowie's discography, find a half dozen of my favourite bands in his collaborators, and begin to gain a sense of quite how important this odd-eyed man from Brixton was in shaping the musical landscape of the second half of the 20th century, before his untimely death in early 2016.
Bowie's talents were, of course, not restricted to music, as his equally rich acting career shows, but little did I know, kid brought up on Star Wars and Monty Python, of a film that somehow combined the talents of Lucas, Python Terry Jones, David Bowie, at the height of his populist 80s phase, before the dark and gritty introspection of the 1990s returned him to trendsetter, and a quietly spoken American puppeteer named Jim Henson. That task, oddly enough, eventually falls to friends at university, and I began to appreciate just how special this strange company of fellow's film was.
That film, of course, is Labyrinth. A fairytale-esque tale of a young girl having to reclaim her brother from the goblins, led by David Bowie as Jareth, and released in 1986 to lukewarma appraisal, it has, of course, since become a cult favourite of hundreds of thousands of fans. Together with the earlier, darker and weirder The Dark Crystal, it marks some of Henson's best work behind, and indeed in front of camera, with a veritable menagerie of odd creatures, both friend and foe to Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), created by his creature workshop.
This is nothing, of course, to say of Bowie himself. If our parents grew up knowing Bowie as alien, white soul singer, cracked actor, and Berlin lodger, then it is Jareth, the quasi-villainous, quasi-Byronic hero that, at least partly, we remember him for. For, despite Connelly's best attempts, and the Henson's workshops best puppets, Bowie completely and utterly steals the show, in a performance that not only leans upon his dramatic chops, but also on...other...aspects. Ahem. If nothing else, the impact of Labyrinth, and on Jareth's appearance, can be seen everywhere, from the work of Japanese concept artist Yoshitaka Amano, to practically the entire New Romantic vibe, to rejuvenating Bowie's carerr as an actor, to some very very weird and not at all unsettling spinoffs which you definitely should not read.
Not only does he get five of the best songs in his admittedly fallow late 80s period onto the soundtrack (at a point where Tonight and Never Let Me Down sank into the mire of late 80s music), most notably the almost annoyingly catchy "Magic Dance", but practically every line out of his mouth is either quotable, wonderfully snarky, or earworm lyric, in no small part due to Terry Jones' work on the script. It's a high-camp performance practically tooled to be the stand-out element of the film, and it's undoubtedly part, in a very weird way, of Bowie's enduring legacy.
Bowie, of course, doesn't get it all his way, even if the plot revolves around him, he holds many of the cards, and his overtures to Sarah practically define his character. If nothing else, this is certainly the technical high-point of Henson's creations, with Brian Froud's designs brought perfectly to life in the form of dozens of goblin puppets on screen in some sequences, including a pitched battle, not to mention Sarah's allies, from the colossal bear-like Ludo to the Quixote-aping Sir Didymus, and the trials she faces along the way. In a clear homage to Alice in Wonderland, which this film takes inspiration from, these range from a duo of quarrelling doorknobs, to a genuinely frightening sequence featuring hundreds of disembodied hands. That a single effect, the green-screened Fireys, is the only moment that hasn't aged like fine-wine is impressive in of itself, but these entirely practical effects are still incredibly fresh, and their technical innovations can be seen in Henson, and his legacy from this film onward, to the most recent incarnation of The Dark Crystal.
But, at the centre of Labryinth is, perhaps, the message that lies at the centre of all Henson's work, a perfect synthesis of fairytale, creative escapism, and the movement from child to adult. Alongside its loans from fairytales, the work of Maurice Sendak, the Wizard of Oz and the brooding love interests of Bronte and Austin, we get something that is uniquely Henson. Here, he reverses the typical movement of the fantastic, of the sense that one needs to give up childish things, the transition of the make-believe to the gently cynical, such that Sarah actually ends the film having grown as an adult without letting go of her dreams, without losing sight of the fact that, to put it in the words of Henson's greatest creation, the world needs "The lovers the dreamers and me", every once in a while.
And Labyrinth, for all its economic failure, is perhaps the greatest non-Muppetine creation of Henson, a complete, dazzling, all encompassing work, that has perhaps three of the greatest creative talents of 70s and 80s popular culture at the top of their game collaborating together to produce a singular, strange and beautiful vision of another world, populated by Henson, written by Jones, and starring Bowie. 33 years on, Labyrinth is a high-point in all three of their careers, and one of the most enjoyable family fantasy movies ever made.
It's the mid 2000s, and my father is listening to an album he's got out of the local lending library; the cover is a sepia-toned image of a man, hair slicked back, well-suited, staring off into the distance with stars in his, what I eventually find are mismatched, eyes. The album is a 2002 record, Heathen, and I have just listened, off in the background, to David Bowie for the first time. Over the next 15 years, I will discover the rest of Bowie's discography, find a half dozen of my favourite bands in his collaborators, and begin to gain a sense of quite how important this odd-eyed man from Brixton was in shaping the musical landscape of the second half of the 20th century, before his untimely death in early 2016.
Bowie's talents were, of course, not restricted to music, as his equally rich acting career shows, but little did I know, kid brought up on Star Wars and Monty Python, of a film that somehow combined the talents of Lucas, Python Terry Jones, David Bowie, at the height of his populist 80s phase, before the dark and gritty introspection of the 1990s returned him to trendsetter, and a quietly spoken American puppeteer named Jim Henson. That task, oddly enough, eventually falls to friends at university, and I began to appreciate just how special this strange company of fellow's film was.
That film, of course, is Labyrinth. A fairytale-esque tale of a young girl having to reclaim her brother from the goblins, led by David Bowie as Jareth, and released in 1986 to lukewarma appraisal, it has, of course, since become a cult favourite of hundreds of thousands of fans. Together with the earlier, darker and weirder The Dark Crystal, it marks some of Henson's best work behind, and indeed in front of camera, with a veritable menagerie of odd creatures, both friend and foe to Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), created by his creature workshop.
This is nothing, of course, to say of Bowie himself. If our parents grew up knowing Bowie as alien, white soul singer, cracked actor, and Berlin lodger, then it is Jareth, the quasi-villainous, quasi-Byronic hero that, at least partly, we remember him for. For, despite Connelly's best attempts, and the Henson's workshops best puppets, Bowie completely and utterly steals the show, in a performance that not only leans upon his dramatic chops, but also on...other...aspects. Ahem. If nothing else, the impact of Labyrinth, and on Jareth's appearance, can be seen everywhere, from the work of Japanese concept artist Yoshitaka Amano, to practically the entire New Romantic vibe, to rejuvenating Bowie's carerr as an actor, to some very very weird and not at all unsettling spinoffs which you definitely should not read.
Not only does he get five of the best songs in his admittedly fallow late 80s period onto the soundtrack (at a point where Tonight and Never Let Me Down sank into the mire of late 80s music), most notably the almost annoyingly catchy "Magic Dance", but practically every line out of his mouth is either quotable, wonderfully snarky, or earworm lyric, in no small part due to Terry Jones' work on the script. It's a high-camp performance practically tooled to be the stand-out element of the film, and it's undoubtedly part, in a very weird way, of Bowie's enduring legacy.
Bowie, of course, doesn't get it all his way, even if the plot revolves around him, he holds many of the cards, and his overtures to Sarah practically define his character. If nothing else, this is certainly the technical high-point of Henson's creations, with Brian Froud's designs brought perfectly to life in the form of dozens of goblin puppets on screen in some sequences, including a pitched battle, not to mention Sarah's allies, from the colossal bear-like Ludo to the Quixote-aping Sir Didymus, and the trials she faces along the way. In a clear homage to Alice in Wonderland, which this film takes inspiration from, these range from a duo of quarrelling doorknobs, to a genuinely frightening sequence featuring hundreds of disembodied hands. That a single effect, the green-screened Fireys, is the only moment that hasn't aged like fine-wine is impressive in of itself, but these entirely practical effects are still incredibly fresh, and their technical innovations can be seen in Henson, and his legacy from this film onward, to the most recent incarnation of The Dark Crystal.
But, at the centre of Labryinth is, perhaps, the message that lies at the centre of all Henson's work, a perfect synthesis of fairytale, creative escapism, and the movement from child to adult. Alongside its loans from fairytales, the work of Maurice Sendak, the Wizard of Oz and the brooding love interests of Bronte and Austin, we get something that is uniquely Henson. Here, he reverses the typical movement of the fantastic, of the sense that one needs to give up childish things, the transition of the make-believe to the gently cynical, such that Sarah actually ends the film having grown as an adult without letting go of her dreams, without losing sight of the fact that, to put it in the words of Henson's greatest creation, the world needs "The lovers the dreamers and me", every once in a while.
And Labyrinth, for all its economic failure, is perhaps the greatest non-Muppetine creation of Henson, a complete, dazzling, all encompassing work, that has perhaps three of the greatest creative talents of 70s and 80s popular culture at the top of their game collaborating together to produce a singular, strange and beautiful vision of another world, populated by Henson, written by Jones, and starring Bowie. 33 years on, Labyrinth is a high-point in all three of their careers, and one of the most enjoyable family fantasy movies ever made.
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