Return to Oz (1985)
DVD5 | VIDEO_TS | PAL 16:9 | Cover + DVD Scan | 01:45:18 | 4,00 Gb
Audio: English, French, Spanish - AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps (each track)
Subs: English (+SDH), French, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy
DVD5 | VIDEO_TS | PAL 16:9 | Cover + DVD Scan | 01:45:18 | 4,00 Gb
Audio: English, French, Spanish - AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps (each track)
Subs: English (+SDH), French, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy
It has been six months since Dorothy has returned home from Oz and she still cannot sleep. She has been going on about imaginary places and people so much that Aunt Em takes her to see a doctor. She promptly escapes from the mental hospital and wakes up in Oz where her pet chicken, Billina, can now talk. There she meets a whole new bunch of friends and they set off to rescue the Scarecrow from the evil Nome King who has found her ruby slippers and used them to lay waste to the Emerald City and take over Oz.
IMDB
After you’ve settled down to The Wizard of Oz and travelled from black and white to colour and then back to black and white again, does the thought ever occur that what Dorothy needs most on her return to the real world is a dose of electro-shock therapy? It’s a rather perverse thought of course, yet this is the one which director and co-writer Walter Murch goes for. Even more perverse is the fact that Return to Oz was the result of Disney getting their hands on the Frank L. Baum stories. Certainly, the studios also spent the mid-eighties putting their money into such dark curiosities as The Black Cauldron and Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, yet nothing quite prepares you for this particular experience. There are no songs and for the entire first act not even a hint of fantasy.
We begin six months after the events of the 1939 picture with Dorothy experiencing sleepless nights. Though she speaks of Oz, the Cowardly Lion and the like, her family believe her to be delusional and so “electric healing” is suggested by Nicol Williamson’s local psychologist. Now the casting is interesting here as it sets up Return to Oz’s attitude with consummate ease: Williamson has previously portrayed Hamlet for Tony Richardson and Merlin for John Boorman, both highly idiosyncratic turns, whilst beloved Aunt Em is played by none other than Carrie’s mother, Piper Laurie.
Indeed, by the time Dorothy has escaped the institute and arrived at Oz we no doubt feel as though we’ve earned some respite. And yet things only grow more peculiar. The onetime Technicolor fantasia has been given a Mad Max-style makeover whilst the Emerald City resembles nothing more than a post-blitz London. The yellow brick road appears to have been dug up, walls are strewn with graffiti, the Deadly Desert (never once mentioned in ’39) turns anyone who touches it to sand in an instant, and then there are the wheelers, arguably the film’s most terrifying creation.
According to the BBFC information on the back sleeve Return to Oz contains only “infrequent mild peril”, yet it’s far worse than this, a veritable catalogue of nightmares in fact. Taking the Doctor Who approach it highlights the terror inherent in the simplest of things: the wheelers warn Dorothy that “we’ll tear you to little pieces” and give off the most horrible squeaking noise; the chief villainess collects dismembered heads which she swaps seemingly at random and, in one particularly scary moment, has scream in unison. Strangely, it takes Dorothy a full hour and ten minutes before she sheds a tear – anyone else would be beyond help by this point.
Hardly standard Disney material then, yet it’s the studio’s presence which allows it to work so well. These headless moments, the Claymation rock faces and the mammoth sets all benefit immeasurably from the Disney chequebook. (Interestingly, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion have all been rendered in a more basic, decidedly cartoon-ish manner at odds with the otherwise dark tones. Indeed, the decision to do so would appear to be a conscious means of rubbing in the fact that Return to Oz is anything but a cartoon).
However, the reason why this film provokes so much awe has little to do with its opulence, but rather the fact that they’ve actually gotten away with it. The tone is miles away from that of the 1939 movie, despite its flying monkeys and Margaret Hamilton cackle, and altogether closer to that darker breed of British animation typified by such talents as David Anderson, the Brothers Quay and the Bolex Brothers. Whereas the original’s hurricane sequence was the perfect opportunity for a late thirties special effects extravaganza, here we get an unremittingly bleak rainstorm scored by a church organ.
In other words there’s a realism at work which also brings with it a certain humanity. Primarily this exerts itself through Fairuza Balk’s wonderfully ordinary performance as Dorothy. Shorn of the Judy Garland mythology and gossip – the uppers and downers, the taped down breasts, etc. – we arrive at a tiny little girl with a palpable melancholy. And as such Return to Oz is provided with its accessible centre. Indeed, it shouldn’t be viewed as a corrective to The Wizard of Oz or the slaying of a sacred cow, but rather a fairytale of a different kind, one more in touch with the world of Brothers Grimm perhaps.
Certainly, it’s still very much a children’s film (as opposed to say those Alice in Wonderland variations – Jonathan Miller’s 1966 adaptation for the BBC, Jan Svankmajer’s 1988 animation or Dennis Potter’s 1985 screenplay, Dreamchild - which are very much intended for adults) and with that a few conspicuous, and perhaps unavoidable, flaws arrive, but then these are easy to forgive. For what we have is a film which really does need to be rediscovered - and with children now being entertained by the likes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy or the forthcoming Harry Potter instalment earning itself a 12A certificate perhaps this is the time for it to reach a new audience.
Special Features: None on the source
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