Labyrinth

Labyrinth is my childhood favorite movie, and I still love it unreasonably.

(For those of you keeping score, my adulthood favorite movies are Clue and Amelie.)

Labyrinth speaks to something within me.  The dark fantasy.  The beautiful surroundings.  The gorgeous guy, even if his pants are way too ... revealing.  (I kid you not, at daycare we called him ... well, an inappropriate name.  Use your imagination.)

Labyrinth was my first exposure to the seduction of dark fantasy.  I am positive I did not know it as such at the time, and certainly couldn't analyze it's allure.  Jareth (David Bowie) uses every magic trick up his sleeve to get his way, and he's the king of the goblins for cryin' out loud.  Strange creatures abound - some friendly, some not so much.  There's even a crazy M. C. Escher room. The hint of something dangerous, something unknown - that appeals to me even more now that I'm grown.  And the kernel for that was planted with this movie.

This was also the first childhood movie I saw with a strong female lead.  This was before Disney heroines had gone the way of Ariel and Belle - we were still in the Cinderella / Sleeping Beauty land of damsel in distress (remember - those make me barf).  Sarah was a spunky teenager, and she got by with a little help from her friends.  Plus, what girl wouldn't want to grow up to be Jennifer Connelly.

Of course, the big fantasy here is that someone or something will scoop you up from your humdrum existence and take you someplace beyond your imagining.  Have an annoying baby brother?  Poof, the goblin king took him away.  Oh, you want him back?  Well, come spend some time in the labyrinth and maybe you can reclaim him.  But if you'd rather not, the goblin king would be happy to accept you as his ... well that's never entirely made clear, is it.  Mistress?  Wife?  Possession? 

Yeah, yeah, you're supposed to want to do the right thing and save your baby brother.  But I have long since realized that I would never have left the masquerade ball. 

P.S.  I own and love the Labyrinth soundtrack. 

P.P.S.  For those ST:TNG fans, did you know that Cheryl Gates McFadden choreographed Labyrinth?

P.P.P.S.  Oh yeah, Jim Henson rocks too.