A character who can create anything goes in search of his creator
Think of the character Harold in Stranger than Fiction, who learns his life has a narrator, and is desperate to go on living. Think of the character Augusto in Miguel de Unamuno's 1914 novel Mist, who learns that his life has a narrator, and is desperate to not go on living. Think of Daffy Duck in the short Duck Amuck, shocked at the revelation that an artist armed with a pencil can freely create or destroy his existence.
But also: think of the NPC Guy in the film Free Guy, who learns that his life is scripted by computer code, and decides to seize independence. Think of Jack Slater in Last Action Hero, who learns that his face and his voice belong to an actor, and decides to fulfill his mission no matter what. Think of Douglas in the film The Thirteenth Floor, who learns that his life is a digital simulation, and decides to go out into the real world. Think of Giselle in Enchanted, thrown out of a fairy tale into the endless whirlwind of modern urban life, and decides to search for happiness.
But also: think of Akira Kurosawa turning Van Gogh's paintings into whole worlds to get lost in. Think of Wile E. Coyote painting a tunnel that becomes real and traversable. Think of Cursor in Automan, able to create any object by drawing its outline. Think of Sphere and the cursed power to make imagination real.
Breaks in the boundary between fiction and reality have a long tradition going from Pygmalion and Galatea to Deadpool and She-Hulk. The classic children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson is, like The Thirteenth Floor and Wile E. Coyote, a two-layered instance: it shows a drawn child who is able to draw things into existence. Its recently released film adaptation adds one more level: the child, now grown up, reasons that, if he can interact with the things he draws, he should be able to interact with the one who drew him. What ensues is an understated but deep exploration of the possibilities of fantasy.
In the movie, soon after Harold emerges from the world of the book into the real world, he runs into an aspiring fantasy writer whose style is the polar opposite of Harold's. Harold comes from a cute, whimsical picture book meant to inspire little kids. His nemesis in the film writes edgy grimdark with world-shattering weapons and unpronounceable names. In a literal case of the pen being mightier than the sword, Harold's sweet imagination prove capable of defeating the most twisted creations of a would-be tyrant sorcerer.
The genius part of the movie, however, isn't even in this unsubtle commentary on fantasy subgenres: it's in Harold's quest to meet his author. As it happens, Crockett Johnson has passed away. At first, this news leaves Harold feeling without purpose or direction. But he eventually learns that he doesn't need a creator when he has his own power of creation. In other words, the movie is presenting us with the provocative argument that to live under existentialism is basically to apply Death of the Author to reality. You are your own giver of meaning and your own interpreter.
Harold and the Purple Crayon coats these philosophical insights under shiny layers of common slapstick and fish-out-of-water misunderstandings. But even allowing for the contrivances of a fantasy for kids, this one is so full of them that one is tempted to suspect that the movie is deliberately drawing attention to the fictional quality of its setting, a version of Providence RI that seems to consist of just half a dozen blocks, judging by how frequently the characters run into each other when it's convenient for the plot. More care is employed in handling the parallel between Harold's sense of cosmic abandonment and his human friend's grief over his dead father. It's not only picture book characters who need to learn how to live by their own guidance.
It's a fortunate authorial choice to keep the plot at the right scale for human-sized drama. Other authors might have made Harold's all-powerful crayon end up in the hands of military tech researchers or something like that. It's a mistake that can happen in live-action adaptations. Instead, to stage the climactic conflict between tonally incompatible versions of fantasy keeps the ideas of the film at the right level of abstraction. It's not about what you'd do if you had a magical item that could create anything. It's what you'd do if you removed the restraints of your imagination. Some come up with gritty worlds of endless battle and hypermuscular champions. Others think beyond those limitations and come up with purple ice cream. I know which one I prefer.
Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.
POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.
