THE DARK CRYSTAL

UK, 1982, 87 minutes, Colour.
Stephen Garlick, Billie Whitelaw, Lisa Maxwell.
Directed by Jim Henson, Frank Oz.

Jim Henson was a genius with puppets and special effects. He created the Muppets and a whole range of films. His untimely death at the age of fifty-three meant that his company continued on in his tradition, led by his son. This film is a wonderful fantasy, a battle of good against evil – archetypal, typical and familiar. However, the Henson perspective and the visual vision make it quite distinctive.

A millennium earlier on another planet, a crystal was damaged by a tribe, the Urskeks. Chaos followed. As with so many of these mythologies, the time of a coincidence of suns means a special opportunity – which if the crystal is healed, will mean the end of a rule(?) of terror.

The hero of the film is called Jen, a gelfling, a name evocative of little elves. The gelflings have almost been eliminated by monsters who are controlled by the chaos, the Urskek tribe. Jen has to go on a mission to find the missing piece of the crystal and bring the crystal together – for a restoration of order.

The film is delightfully creative, a variation on the theme of the quest, the struggle of good and evil, chaos and restoration – and has been directed by Henson himself along with his co-director, Frank Oz, both of whom were famous for voicing so many of the characters in the Muppet Show. Frank Oz had a distinguished career as a director of comedy feature films (Little Shop of Horrors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, In and Out).

1. An entertaining and interesting fantasy? The quality of fantasy, 20th. century myth-making? The perennial issues of good and evil, light and darkness, harmony? Heroes and heroines? Heroics, romance? The background of chivalry?

2. The technical qualities of the film? The work of Jim Henson and Frank Oz? The background of the Muppets and Sesame Street? The quality of landscapes: the castle, the land itself with its mountains, valleys, forests? The dome, the pit? Exteriors and interiors? The finale and its special effects? The satisfying blend of reality and unreality? Audiences accepting the look of this created world? Identifying with it? An attractive fantasy land? Shapes, colours, movement? Invention? Puppetry?

3. Panavision photography, colour? Light and darkness? The crystal? The special effects for the uniting of the Skeksis and the Mystics at the end? The stunt work? The editing and pace for delight, horror, fear, shock?

4. The imagination of the creatures - their human qualities? Differences? The visualising of our subconscious images? The personifications of good and evil: the Skeksis and the combination of vulture, lizard? The pomp of their lifestyle, their greediness - the mediaeval courts and banquets and the foul manners and selfishness? Their cruelty, their voices, the way they moved, their skeletal frameworks when their robes were removed, tortures etc.? The worldly pomp? The contrast with the Mystics and their strange lumbering appearance, their dignified movement, their harmonies and music, their hands, their animal features? The visuals of their pilgrimage and their slow movement, space between them, patterns? The creation of Aughra and her ugly appearance, horns, her eye and its removal, the kindly witch? The Gelflings and their cross between children and elves? The almost-Disney touch? The slaves with the echoes of the Muppets? The Garthim and their crab- and spiderlike heaviness? The Flyers as cruel bats? The LandStriders? The range of friendly animals? The villagers? The comic invention of Fizgig - and his bark and his fluffiness? The imagination of the appearances of these creatures? Technical aspects of their movements, eyes, the importance of the vocal characterisations?

4. Audiences accepting this mythical world and its parallel with our own world? The parallels with human behaviour: evil, cruelty, heroics, stupidity? Insight via fantasy?

5. The information of the prologue: the land, its being parched, the echoes of the millennium with the thousand years and the apocalyptic coincidence of the three suns? Aughra's globes and the touches of astronomy? The visualising of the coinciding of the suns as the finale? The emphasis on myth and legend? The Skeksis and the Mystics and the contrast and balance between good and evil?

6. The parallel of Skeksis and Mystics one and then the other dying, wounded etc.? The parallels in hierarchy in the two groups? The puzzle about the Gelfings? The Skeksis and their self-preservation, the Mystics and their travelling? Annihilation unless harmony and wholeness were achieved? The finale with the unification and the visual effects? The dark and flawed crystal turning to white? The echoes of Lucifer and rebellion, paradise regained? Love vivifying the dead? The nature of prophecy as interpretation and foretelling? Prophecy and control and destiny? The relationship with the psychological themes and investigations of C. G.

7. The epic themes of catastrophe, reconciliation, the fulfilment of time, journey, hero, test, courage and endurance. Foes, help, betrayal, love, confrontation, self-sacrifice. the heroic deed. the reward? The epic theme of quest and goal?

8. The Skeksis and their appearance - gross physical appearance and behaviour, an imaginative personification of evil, the dark side of the spirit? Cadaverous. vulture and lizard-like. animal? The courtly behaviour and its aping of empire and kingdom? The emperor and his death? The vulture atmosphere of his death and the taking of the crown? Cruel manners? Their origins. the millennium of evil? Living at the centre and drawing their life from the crystal? Their fears of destruction? The prophecy of doom? The emperor's death, the squabble, the politicking? The breaking up of the kingdom? The chamberlain and his sinister place in the hierarchy. manner? The challenge and the fight? The dispatch of the Garthim to protect themselves? The Flyers? The capture of Aughra? Their slaves? The laboratories and the torture of the slaves and draining their life essence? The chamberlain and his exile. trying to deceive hero and heroine? His wheedling way? The final confrontation? Their destruction?

9. The comparison with the Mystics - in themselves, the personification of good. musical harmony, instruction, oral tradition? Yet weak and sluggish? The place where they dwelt? The millennium of suppressed good? The dying race? The parallels with the Skeksis and the contrasts with their deaths and vanishing? The Master and his instructing Jen? The mission, hopes. the Mystics' pilgrimage? Their entering into the palace and confronting the Skeksis? Merging with them? The final truth of their unity?

10. The theme of the disruption of harmony., the splitting of the whole, the two sides of good and evil? The shattering of the crystal? The integration of the two sides? Images of the human psyche?

11. The range of menacing creatures and their ugliness, shadow side of the psyche? The Garthim and their armour-like appearance. spider and crab? Their marching rampage and destruction? Smashing villages? Smashing Aughra's laboratory? The Flyers and their destructive bat-like menace?

12. The animals and the woods. playful and joy? Fizgig and his roaring? His furry charm? His eyes? His help? Companion? The heroine's ability to communicate with the animals and make peace in the forest? Her final communication for rescue?

13. The Land- Striders and their being called.. the challenge, the saving of hero and heroine. the attack and their dying?

14. Aughra and the mythical themes of help for the hero by the Loathly damsel? The benign witch? Her terrain, her creatures. her laboratory. the globes. her having the secret of the crystal? Her helping Jen to find the crystal? The smashing of her home by the Garthim? Her going to the dwelling of the Skeksis? The help, Fizgig? Her being a strange mother and Good Fairy-figure?

15. The presentation of Kira's village? The overtones of the pleasing mediaeval village. the clan. the banquet. singing. rejoicing? The brutality of the destruction and the imprisonment?

16. The role of the slaves for the Skeksis? Waiting on them? The laboratory - with the Frankenstein touch? The draining of the essence and the emperor using it?

17. The Gelflings with the human touch and the touch of the fairy? Jen thinking he was the only survivor? The Gelflings as the saviour-race? Jen and Kira and the collage of their sharing? The sharing of memories? Travelling together? Kira and the animals? The despair after the destruction of the village? Throwing away the shard? Recovering it? The Land- Striders and the fight? Entering the dome? Kira captured and her essence being drained? Communication with Jen and his sustaining her? The summoning of the animals? Kira being strong? The chamberlain following them through the forest, the temptation in the garden (echoes of Eden and serpents -but this time the hero being tempted and the heroine being able to name and control the animals)? The chamberlain capturing Kira? Jen and the dangers, his braving the dangers of the pit? Fizgig's help? Kira willing to die? Jen and his placing the shard in the crystal?

18. Hero and heroine, a modern epic with the masculine and the feminine sharing the heroism? Genesis, Eden and parallels? The deed and the sacrifice both being needed? Jen able to love Kira back to life? (And the pleasant touch of wings distinguishing boys from girls!)

19. Psychological themes of the conscious and the unconscious and their symbols? Masculine and feminine symbols?

20. The build-up to the climax, the final speech? The explanation of the arrogance of the Lucifer-like creatures? The split into good and evil? The possibility of wholeness? The importance of the symbolic shapes - circles and triangles?

21. For what audience was the film made? For what sensibilities? The appreciation of the young? Appreciation of adult audiences? An important cinema contribution to the shaping of contemporary legends and myths? The parallel with ancient stories, with mediaeval epics and chivalry, with the Christ story -Christ-figures?