David Bowie in the original Labyrinth. Photo / supplied
David Bowie in the original Labyrinth. Photo / supplied
COMMENT:
In the final scene of the movie Labyrinth our young heroine Sarah sits alone in her bedroom. She's exhausted after a grand adventure through the constantly shifting maze of the title and a fraught, mind-bending confrontation with the charismatically evil goblin king Jareth who, roughly 90 minutes earlier, hadkidnapped her baby brother.
Alone and lonely and missing her unlikely travelling companions; Hoggle a cowardly dwarf, the foolishly valiant fox-terrier Sir Didymus, and a hulking shaggy beast named Ludo, she turns to her bedroom mirror and hears a voice behind her.
"Remember fair maiden, should you need us," Didymus says, reflecting back, before Hoggle appears saying, "Should you need us for any reason at all..."
In a wonderful piece of acting from the 14-year-old Jennifer Connelly that sees her flood Sarah's face with various contrasting emotions all at once, she replies to the dejected yet hopeful puppets looking back at her in the mirror, "I need you, Hoggle. I don't know why, but every now and again in my life, for no reason at all, I need you, all of you."
Hoggle's sad sack demeanour lifts and he seems to grin - an incredibly piece of acting from a person in a puppet suit - and he says, "well, why didn't you say so?" and then Sarah spins around to see all of the fantastical, magical and brilliantly creepy creatures she encountered in the labyrinth crowded in her room while David Bowie's gloriously joyous 80s synth-funk hit Magic Dance cranks up and it's just a damn great happy ending to what I reckon is a modern day cinema classic.
Labyrinth is one of my all-time favourite movies. I would have been about nine when my parents took my sister and I to see it at the cinema way back in 1986 and it's a movie experience I still remember vividly.
A wildly imaginative adventure that was exciting and fun but also filled with terrifying menace - as so many of the great kids films were back then.
What young child wasn't left mentally scarred by the manic grinning Fireys clawing at Sarah as they tried to pull her head off to play catch with, or cowered at the threat of being dipped in the belching, bubbling Bog of Eternal Stench or was just plain spooked out by Bowie's smugly serpentine, though increasingly frantic performance, as the film's powerful otherworldly baddie Jareth?
But perhaps the most wondrous thing about Labyrinth is how well it still stands up today. Okay, some of the special effects don't look so special over 30 years later, but there's still something about all the puppets and creatures that feels so real, even to these old eyes. That right there is the magic of the movie's writer/director, and Muppets creator, Jim Henson.
That final scene in the movie was indeed final. The story had been satisfactorily resolved with everyone except the bad guy living happily ever after. Yes, the final shot of the movie is Jareth's owl alter-ego peering in through the window at the celebrations before flying into the night but you wouldn't think that was enough wiggle room to continue the story.
Wrong! Because this week, for no reason at all, it was announced that Labyrinth would again be in our life, whether we needed it or not. Yes, an extremely belated sequel is underway.
It's been hard not to be a hater about this considering Hollywood's woeful track record at reviving beloved favourites from my generation's wonder years but I'm trying to stay positive.
Firstly, I'm glad it's a sequel and not a prequel. I'm well over seeing how things I already know came to be, if we must go back then at least go forward and show me what happens next.
Secondly, they've tapped director Scott Derrickson to make it. Before making Marvel's psychedelically trippy Dr Strange, his background was in occult horror films. Believe me, with Derrickson the sinister vibe of the original is only going to be amplified and I don't think he'll shy away from the adult subtext of the film.
No, the two biggest problems, not counting the whole idea of course, is that the power house creative team of Jim Henson and David Bowie are both sadly no longer with us. No one has matched Henson's seemingly innate understanding of how to entertain and exploit a child's natural wonder while Bowie's charismatically moody and disturbing performance truly left some obscenely tight pants to fill.
But who knows, maybe we only think we don't need it in our lives anymore because we're old and creaky and cynical. As an idea the Labyrinth sequel probably should have got lost, but every now and again in life we all need a little magic. Let's just hope this return trip into the Labyrinth provides it.
