“Find our eyes and our souls will be free”

“Find our eyes and our souls will be free”

Along with my obsession with quotes and lyrics, I also love subtexts and hidden messages in movies and poetry. The movie “Coraline” has all these things. I fell in love with it at the opening credits!

Synopsis if you haven’t seen the movie: In a life that seems shuttered and dank, Coraline cannot help but imagine a world where things are brighter. She discovered her “other parents” in a world she could only hope was real. A world where everything is lively and colourful…where her wildest hopes and dreams have come true. But Coraline soon comes to realise this somewhat “perfect” world is not what it seems. With buttons for eyes and that gut feeling that it’s “too good to be true”, Coraline begins to notice her perfect world isn’t quite so enticing anymore.

It gives a whole new meaning to the saying “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”. Coraline has the emotions of every teenager…the feeling of insecurity, helplessness, boredom, the fear of abandonment and the being ignored. I mean, who hasn’t hated their life at some point and longed for something more fulfilling? It allures to the fact that “the hardest battles are fought within the silent chambers of your own soul”. No-one every truly understands what you are going through. Coraline sought a life with more excitement and something to live for.  

In Coraline’s new world…she has everything she lacked in her “real life” and the idea of staying in the alternate world was extremely alluring. This is a common theme in movies, the temptation of the poison apple, the biblical story of Eve and the devil snake…right down to the enticement of the classic “bad boy” image. Nothing comes without a price to be paid. In Coraline’s case, she was to trade her eyes for buttons to remain in this fantasy world of lollipops and rainbows.

Losing her eyes would mean blinding her from the wickedness of the world and stripping her of her rose-coloured glasses. It’s a message to the people watching that through rose-coloured glasses you blind yourself from reality and ignore real world problems. The ghosts of the children Coraline tries to save tell her, “find our eyes and our souls will be free”. Taking this and throwing it into today, it means once you open your eyes and really look…ordinary things do become beautiful and the evilness of the world is revealed. Sometimes resisting the temptation can be difficult but the grass is not always greener on the other side. Some of the most painful choices we must make in life are the ones you know you should resist.

Coraline also explores the notion of “there’s no place like home” and “be careful what you wish for”. We all want something else, something we can’t or don’t have, but in the end all we have is what we need. The desire of wanting more is a first world problem.  

Fear of the unknown…the human nature of regarding what happens in the world as controllable…this is something Coraline discovered when she found she could not leave the fantasy world. A world where you cannot control what happens to you is horribly eye opening. My heart pounded so fast watching this…because the idea of being trapped in a world I cannot control is crazy.

Subtexts I found in Coraline:

1. Be careful what you wish for

2. The grass is not always greener on the other side

3. The hardest battles are fought within the silent chambers of your own soul

4. So many things become beautiful when you really look

5. Rose-coloured glass only blind you from the world’s wickedness…they do not take it away

6. There’s no place like home

7. The most painful of choices to be made are the ones you know you should resist

8. Find our eyes and our souls will be saved

9. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone

All in all, this children’s movie carried with it many dark and gothic but rather valuable messages. Evil can be disguised by the temptation of all things you’ve ever dreamed. Coming from a first world country…we take so much for granted and always want more from life. We should be thinking of those not so lucky. We should be removing our rose-coloured glasses and taking in the world for what it really is. Being blinded from the wickedness of reality does not change a thing. I loved this movie so much and I admire the Producer’s talent for mixing these themes behind the quirky children’s movie.