The Dark Crystal

At the screening of The Dark Crystal I attended a few weeks ago, Jim Henson’s daughter Cheryl was there to talk about the process of the film’s creation, along with Robbie Barnett, a body puppeteer who played several of the creatures in the film. She emphasized that for Henson, The Dark Crystal was largely about the creation of a completely new and utterly different place; a broad and sweeping vision of a fantastic world populated by dying races, yet teeming with life (even the rocks can get up and stroll around).

And, in that respect at least, he succeeds. The world of The Dark Crystal is indeed impressive; the pure delight with which Henson took in creating it down to the smallest details permeates the screen. The home of the Gelfling Kira is alive with flora, fauna, and, yeah, minerals. The castle of the Skeksis is creepy and forbidding. They really do look like places, not sets. Henson poured himself into the film, and it shows (according to Cheryl Henson, her father began working on it in 1977).

Unfortunately, and it pains me to say this due to the respect I have for Henson, the result is a beautiful ballroom with no dancers. The story is slight and Fantasy 101: Two races, the Skeksis and Mystics, split apart by the shattering of the Dark Crystal 1,000 years before, have reached a tipping point: either the crystal will be restored and life will return to the planet, or it will remain split and the evil Skeksis will rule forever. Only the Gelfling Jen can restore the Dark Crystal and set things right. The story unfolds pretty much as you’d expect, subservient to the admittedly impressive puppetry. There is one important exception to that: while the Skeksis and Mystics are fully realized and fascinating to watch, the Gelflings ... well, they look like puppets, with limited facial expressions. Their presence is jarring, and that the film never fully resolves just who are the real protagonists—is it the Skeksis/Mystics, who are really the dominant species, or the time-filling but seemingly less significant Gelflings?—only further muddies the waters.

The Dark Crystal ends up being the cinematic equivalent of Antarctica: beautiful to look at and filled with strange creatures, but what’s the point of sticking around?

29 December 2004