"I hope you will forgive me for saying so - and I hope the filmmakers will forgive me, too - but "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" has forced me to ponder the deepest mysteries of cinema. Why, for instance, do certain faces haunt and move us as they do?
I am thinking of Gromit, the mute and loyal animated dog whose selflessness and intelligence can be counted on, when things get really crazy, to save the day. Gromit has no mouth, and yet his face is one of the most expressive ever committed to the screen. In particular, his brow - a protuberance overhanging his spherical, googly eyes - is an almost unmatched register of emotion. Resignation, worry, tenderness and disgust all come alive in that plasticine nub...
We all had a marvelous time. Perhaps it was the giant furry were-rabbit, or maybe the twinkle of romance between Wallace and Totty, or even the uplifting and nutritious pro-vegetable message... All of that and more, I'm sure. But for me, most of all, it was Gromit's forehead, which gave me renewed appreciation for the magic of movies. If only I had a dog like that."
I would not have thought that a quintessentially English film like W&G would travel, but the US seems to like it, even if some of the social comedy appears to pass them by. Unfortunately, to please American sensibilities, Wallace's marrow has been transmuted (at least in the US version) to a melon. (No, I don't know why.)
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