Bleak and subtilely disturbing. It’s interesting to observe this film after the immersion of Chucky, Annabelle, and the sentient play-thing trend in Hollywood because this is strangely a precursor to it in a way.We see the process of one of these dolls being crafted but very early on, the doll-maker exits and instead of following him, we stay with the dolls. And in a way, having this elongated exposure to their presence without a creator or human in view, a vitality then starts to become attributed to them. It’s also important to consider that everything in this film is apart of this distortion of reality. The dolls, the cuckoo-clock, and even the visual style. It’s all feigning a sense of normality which in actuality is risen from something unworldly and inhuman. There’s also the presence of the lamp and its significance not only in the film but of course, the title. From what the film gives us, the meaning found is Polanski illustrating to us that perhaps art or entertainment, simply any exaggeration of reality cannot protect us from the burning and sizzling destruction of the world we live in. And considering, it’s release being only a decade after WWII’s conclusion, this also maybe speaks on that as well.
Bleak and subtilely disturbing. It’s interesting to observe this film after the immersion of Chucky, Annabelle, and the sentient play-thing trend in Hollywood because this is strangely a precursor to it in a way.We see the process of one of these dolls being crafted but very early on, the doll-maker exits and instead of following him, we stay with the dolls. And in a way, having this elongated exposure to their presence without a creator or human in view, a vitality then starts to become attributed to them. It’s also important to consider that everything in this film is apart of this distortion of reality. The dolls, the cuckoo-clock, and even the visual style. It’s all feigning a sense of normality which in actuality is risen from something unworldly and inhuman. There’s also the presence of the lamp and its significance not only in the film but of course, the title. From what the film gives us, the meaning found is Polanski illustrating to us that perhaps art or entertainment, simply any exaggeration of reality cannot protect us from the burning and sizzling destruction of the world we live in. And considering, it’s release being only a decade after WWII’s conclusion, this also maybe speaks on that as well.
