Babe: Pig in the City

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler, Jordan, Amberly

Just needing to prove a point I made in Happy Feet 2. It's unfair to say that the movie advertised int hat trailer is not what you get. But it's certainly not HOW you get it.

George Miller has made a fascinating film and the darkest, most traumatising g-rated film I've ever come across.

Mickey Rooney dressed as a clown. Horrifying enough I know but then Babe kills him via a series of accidents, in front of an audience of cancer kids, in slow motion to the soundtrack of Édith Piaf's Non, je ne regrette rien. That's just really messed up. There are other ways you could have directed that sequence. And again, it's these unusual directorial choices from Miller that makes watching Happy Feet so fascinating to me as well.

And while maybe not as traumatising as watching a dog strung up upside-down by a chain slowly lowered into a canal and drown while other animals slowly turn away and ignore his desperate plight to the soundtrack of Puccini's Humming Chorus, (already traumatising in itself thanks to Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures) I find there is a far more particular psychological cruelty to watching a cute little cripple dog get killed trying to save his friend's firstly, secondly showing him finally at peace and happily running around in heaven and finally having Babe rip him out of his one state of bliss back into the grimy depressing real world where his is a cripple again. It's hard to describe exactly how well this sequence works at tearing your insides up but it leaves me shellshocked every time.

Yes, Babe 2 is a very dark little number, especially compared to the bright sunshine of the first film. I really do love the way the portray the city. They've made it THE city, with bits of every famous city landmarks all rolled into one giant idea of what a city is, filtered through a children's storybook world. Production design is amazing. And FX work by Rhythm and Hues is great as well.

Look, don't get me wrong, I think the film is utterly amazing and I like how dark it goes but it still does leave me in shock at some of the stuff they got away with depicting without getting the bump up to PG.