Coraline

In previous review journal which is based on Final Destination (2000), the movie film is likely to be categorized in the horror genre. On the other hand, there are also movie films that include more than one genre. In today's goal of the journal, I would like to brief about one of the main elements to produce a good film--Genre, through the movie film Coraline. Each of the audiences will purchase a movie ticket to watch based on their favorite genres. Thus, it is important to know about as it can be well-categorized and most likely to influence one movie's ratings and reviews from the audiences based on different genres.

:::GENRE:::

Genre is defined as a form of categorizing or grouping films into different film types. To categorize a film, Rick Altman has proposed an effective method so long, which are semantic and syntactic approach.  In semantic approach, it is more typically expected by the audience, and it focus on mise-en-scene elements (settings, props, costumes, make-up, lighting, actors' movements and facial expressions and sounds); whereas in syntactic approach, it is derived from the narrative of the film or ideology of genre. These two approaches must be used complementary in order to create a genre analysis. Back to genre, many genres are developed since the early days. The most common ones are Comedy, Adventure, Action, Horror, Musical, Romance, Science-fiction, Fantasy, Animation etc. In these genres there are also sub-genres in each of the category. Based on this week's review journal, it is based on the movie Coraline. Coraline is a 2009 3D-animated dark fantasy stop-motion movie based on Neil Gaiman's 2002 novel Coraline. The movie is produced by Laika and distributed by Focus Features. 

:::SYNOPSIS:::

Coraline, a 11-year old girl, and her busy parents moved to a new place named Pink Palace Apartments. One day, a boy named Wyborne gave her a button-eyed doll that looks like her, and few days later the doll lured Caroline to a secret door in the living room. Through the pathway, she discovered a parallel world from hers, which shows the exact warmness of another family. Yet, she realized that the parallel world is a risky place, soon she left the world to her original place. Her parents were kidnapped by the other mother for attracting Coraline back to her hands. Coraline went back to the parallel world and saved her parents along with the help of three ghost children and Wybie.

:::RECAPPED SCENE:::

In Coraline, there are three genres contained in this movie film. The first genre will be Horror. The overall lighting and colours are dim and dark to show the hollow feeling of the movie, which can be seen in the parallel world and also the other world garden. Secondly, the three supernatural ghost kids play a part in showing the horror element. These three ghost kids told Coraline that they are locked in the mirror due to their choice of staying at this other world, and been sewed buttons onto their eyes by the other mother, Beldam. After sewed, they were eaten by Beldam and their souls were left aside. They also told Coraline the truth behind her button-eyed doll, which it played as a spy of Beldam to investigate the unhappiness of Coraline.

Next, Action genre is also shown in the film. For the most important scene to show the action element will be the scene where Coraline was trapped and escaped from Beldam’s web or room, when Beldam had revealed herself as a gigantic spider after her eyes are being plucked by the black cat. After a quick escape from Beldam, she closed the door of the room as fast as she can with the aid of the ghost kids. She also used her full speed to run back to her original home while the door of other world came nearer and nearer like a zoom-in effect. Luckily, she was fast enough to get back to her living room and locked the door immediately.

Moreover, the third genre that is majorly shown will be Fantasy genre. The lively animation including characters, effects, settings and costumes fantasized the overall framework of the movie film. In the other world’s garden, the plants and small animals are unrealistic yet fantasizing along with the designation, colours and animated effects. Besides, the tunnel between the living room and the other living room are showing fantasy theme, as it is magical and mysterious enough to amaze the audiences. The magical look of the pathway was shown by the changing effect of colour and the turning effect. It shows the non-fiction scenario, which are the pathway to another ideal world of Coraline. Last but not least, the villain character Beldam changed from a button-eyed human to a enormous spider, and this show the fantasy theme as it is not realistic in real life.

:::CONCLUSION:::

As a conclusion, Coraline is an interesting and understandable animation movie film that is suitable to all types of ages with different favored genres, as it contains many types of genre: Horror, Action and Fantasy-based. Based on my thoughts, the movie does show the genres well in single-genre scene or mixed-genre scene. The moral lesson and hidden meanings are the most important thing to be recognized in the end of the film.