This July saw five major animated features arrive in New York City theatres, each film being remarkably handsome and representing the state of the art in its own particular visual style. Yet the key to making an animated feature film into a classic is the strength of its story. I am particularly interested in examining what makes the stories of animated narrative films gripping, moving, insightful, and even evocative of myth. The five films I investigate in this installment of "The Enchanted Drawing" provide interesting case studies in how such stories can work and what they can achieve.
Don Bluth Productions' long-awaited The Secret of N.I.M.H. more than lives up to its reputation for having generally superb animation, exciting and suspenseful action scenes, and an opulent beauty ranging from its striking backgrounds to its literally glowing lighting effects. Its storyline, which is in many ways remarkably faithful to Robert C. O'Brien's novel, is intriguing and creates an effective "sense of wonder." Mrs. Brisby, a widowed field mouse, and her children live in a home that will soon be destroyed by a farmer's plow. She must move elsewhere, but one of her her sons is ill and will die of he leaves his bed. In trying to find a solution to what seems an impossible dilemma, Mrs. Brisby discovers a mysterious civilization of rats, whose intelligence was increasedto human level by exeriments at the National Institute of Mental Health (N.I.M.H.). She discovers that her late husband was secretly an ally of the rats, had had his own intelligence increased, and moreover, that the rats too must move lest they be destroyed or recaptured by the scientists they have escaped.
But the story has its defects, one being a carryover from the novel. The experiments at N.I.M.H. are supposed to have increased the rats' intelligence to human levels, and yet ordinary animals, most prominently Mrs. Brisby herself, are capable of humanlike thinking and talking. In both book and film, Mrs. Brisby has even learned to read "a little"! Of course, the story itself could not exist without an anthropomorphic heroine, but the film version makes the paradox more noticeable. The flashback depicting the rats and mice caught by N.I.M.H. before they had their intelligence increased portrays them as very real looking rodents, not at all like the anthopomorphic Mrs. Brisby. The first sign that N.I.M.H.'s injections have had an extraordinary effect on the rats comes when one ofthem, Nicodemus, descovers he can read and ultimately frees himself from his cage. Not only can Mrs. Brisby also read, but, in a departure from the novel, she too frees herself from a cage through some very clever thinking. The ordinary mice are also shown wearing clothes and sleeping in beds! On seeing all of this, I began to suspect that Mrs. Brisby was more than she seemed, and perhaps was herself unknowingly a subject of N.I.M.H. experimentation. Might not that explain why the wise and saintly Nicodemus takes such interest in her, and why not only the N.I.M.H. rats but also the mysterious and all-knowing Great Owl are so taken aback on learning who she is? But she is not "special" in such a way, and nothing comes of any of this.
Perhaps part of the solution to this apparent inconsistency lies in the fact that at least some of the N.I.M.H. rats must have more than human intelligence. In the novel, their heightened brain power basically makes the N.I.M.H. rats capable of reading and utilizing electrical equipment. The film's rats have gone far beyond this. Their underground headquarters resembles a palace, and most of the rats dress in resplendent medieval-style costumes. They wield swords and spears that emit electrical shocks. The rats' civilization takes on the look of a rodents' Camelot, in which the ancient, mystical ruler, Nicodemus acts as both Arthur and Merlin, and the would-be usurper Jenner, who eventually kills Nicodemus, acts the role of Mordred. Jenner does not kill Nicodemus in the book, and although he is Nicodemus's political opponent, the book's Jenner is by no means as blackhearted a villain as he is in the film. The novel's Nicodemus does not seem so elderly or supremely wise, and he is certainly not a mystic. The film's Nicodemus has eerily glowing eyes, just like the Great Owl whom Mrs. Brisby consults earlier. The Owl seems somehow unearthly in the film, appearing as a monstrous figure of death and a preternatural source of wisdom, with an unexplained connection with the N.I.M.H. rats. In the book, the Owl is much less fearsome and enigmatic, and he knows about the rats merely from seeing them while he was flying. In the film, the glowing eyes of both the Great Owl and Nicodemus suggests there is something godlike about them. Indeed, when the door to Nicodemus's chamber opens, Mrs. Brisby finds herself bathed in blinding light. Nicodemus has merely to gesture and his cane comes to him as if by magic. He has a screen that aparently works by means of some futuristic science that allows him to monitor events both past and present. The screen's existence indicates that the rats command scientific knowledge beyond that of humans. Moreover, they have somehow penetrated the secrets of magic as well. Nicodemus presents Mrs. Brisby with an occult jewel, intended for her by her late husband, which she uses at the film's climax to levitate her home out of a pool of mud in which it was submerged, and, presumably, to resurrect her children who had been trapped inside and presumably drowned. The jewel and the resurection are entirely the film's inventions, as is the murdered Nidocemus's return as a spirit in the manner of Star Wars' Obi-Wan Kenobi. If Nicodemus was potentially godlike, by the film's end he has indeed ascended to a higher level of being.
Many of the film's changes from the way the book depicts Nicodemus, the Great Owl, and the rats' society were surely made to add more visual beauty to the film, to make use of the Bluth studio's great capabilities for special effects animation, and to add more mythic resonance to the tale. But by transforming the rats' society into a mystical, knightly brotherhood in which miracles can occur, the film gives more importance to the rats than the book's storyline can easily bear. The mystical brotherhood steals the show, and yet, after the death of the treacherous Jenner, it has nothing more to do with the story. Mrs. Brisby performs her miracle without their aid, and in the next and final scene, the rats are gone, having moved elsewhere in the area off-camera. I felt let down. What will happen to the rats? What wonders might they discover later? What kind of leader will Justin, Nicodemus's loyal aide and successor, prove to be? And will Mrs. Brisby continue to have some connection with the rats' society?
Here, in fact, is the movie's primary problem. As adapted by Bluth and company, Mrs. Brisby's story becomes one in which she undergoes a series of trials which enable her to prove the depth of her love for her children, demonstrate her intelligence and capacity for bravery, and strengthen her character. This timorous mouse survives a furious encounter with the ferocious Dragon, confronts the dreaded Great Owl, penetrates the rats' headquarters, succeeds in drugging the Dragon (a task her husband died in attempting), escapes entrapment by humans on her own (whereas in the book Justin had to rescue her), and finally, in a scene that is not in the novel, endured burning pain to use the magic jewel to save her children. The lighting effects in this scene make Mrs. Brisby look transfigured: natural forces erupt about her indicating the tremendous power she command through the jewel, and when she has finished, the rats stare at her in awe. This "ordinary" mouse has proved herself capable of greater feats than any of their society's super-evolved members.
Mrs. Brisby then just goes back to live in the farmer's field, albeit in a safer location. She has taken the magic jewel--which her husband had wanted her to have, which Nicodemus himself had given her, and which she alone has so far proved capable of using due to her courage and capacity for love--and simply given it to Justin! Well, will she continue to keep in touch with the rats, at least? And what of her children, who apparently have inherited their father's high genetic potential? She says they might go visit the rats someday, but she makes no promises. Now, the great Disney films usually have the lead character achieving transcendence at the end, whither it takes theform of Dumbo's stardom, Pinnochio's transformation into a human, various heroines' marriages to princes, or, as we shall see, Bambi's rise to princehood. I would not have been surprised if Mrs. Brisby had taken up positions of honor within the rats' community, or even married Justin and ruled together with him. (A considerable attraction is established between Mrs. Brisby and Justin in the movie, and is almost immediately forgotten.) But instead Mrs. Brisby has transcendence in her grasp, and just lets it go. Perhaps this is entirely intentional on the filmmakers' part, and they are trying to make some point which escapes me. To my mind, however, they would have been better off being less faithful to the book and devising a different conclusion. The Secret of N.I.M.H. is a fascinating film which misses being a classic primarily because it lacks the kind of ending that moves its protagonist to a higher level and thereby moves its audence emotionally.