I specifically remember asking my mom and dad about the beginning scene, "Man in the Mirror", because I just couldn't understand why girls would scream and faint in the audience. My parents couldn't really give me a satisfying answer...It's still a hard phenomenon to explain. Most of the film is very disorienting, it's a fast paced montage of Michael Jackson's life (up until the film was made in 1988) as shown through music videos. There's a remake of the bad video, in which all the dancers, including MJ, are children. I think this is where I can start to really identify with the film, after all, I was only 6 or 7 at the time. I remember thinking the bullies looked so old...But upon watching the film again last night, I realized they were only 13 or 14...still children, although years older than child MJ's crew. The next scene is magical, little MJ walks through a cloud of dry ice and walks out a grown man...Michael Jackson circa 1988, the Michael Jackson that I knew and loved. He is now in a movie studio, and is spotted by claymation fans who immediately turn blood thirsty and start chasing him.
He runs around the movie set, while being chased by an evil looking granny and grandson, 2 fat twins with mickey mouse ears, and even some cowboys (whom he angers by running into their movie shoot by accident). He takes refuge in a costume closet, and walks out disguised as a giant rabbit. No one realizes it is him, until he does the Moonwalk. The next scene is him as a claymation rabbit, zooming around on a high speed motor bike/water ski/jet-pack as he tries to escape his fans and the media. Eventually he drives into the dessert and takes off the costume, which comes to life. Michael and his rabbit costume/alter ego/friend "Spike" have a dance off, only to be stopped by a police man who points to a "no moonwalking" road sign and gets Michael to "autograph" a ticket. The next scene is the music video for "Leave Me Alone" in which Michael rides around an amusement part of "his life", in which Michael's giant body is trapped as the foundation for a roller coaster. I remember most of the video, which mostly makes fun of the media rumours surrounding Michael's life, including references to Elizabeth Taylor and the Elephant Man. But one thing I noticed this time around was a nose and scalpel floating by, which had by-passed by non-existent 6 year old knowledge of plastic surgery. The next scene is the only non-music video part of the film: 3 (homeless?) children are on a rooftop, looking down through a warm-lit skylight, probably onto some kind of perfect domestic scene, in which a child is being read a bedtime story or something like that. The main character, Katie, is a blonde child with braided pig tails. She holds onto a teddy bear and wishes for a lucky star for Michael. The children look down onto a beautiful town house, from which Michael Jackson appears, elegantly dressed in a dark 1930s suit and white overcoat. Suddenly, he is attacked by machine guns (which are in the form of video cameras). Katie screams out "Michael!" and she has a flashback to an earlier time when the three children, Michael, and their dog Skipper, were playing ball in a beautiful field. I remember wishing I could play ball with Michael Jackson...But watching it now, I can see through the acting, sadly. Even the yellow flowers are fake-looking. Skipper runs off, so Michael and Katie go to find him. They eventually find a cave full of cobwebs and trantulas, and Michael unlocks a secret door to an underground layer, in which they discover Joe Pesci aka the evil character "Frankie Lideo" (which I realized during the credits is the name of Michael Jackson's manager!) Frankie wants to inject all children in the world with drugs! (Cue scary music) BUM Bum bum...Katie screams when a tarantula touches her hand, and they are pursued, but escape. Flash forward to Michael being blown to bits by machine guns/video cameras...But Michael has managed to escape somehow, and manages to out run henchmen and even dobermans! When he gets trapped down a dead end, he sees a lucky star and transforms himself into a sports car!
It seemed totally possible when I watched the film in 1992, but in 2009, I cringed...Not so much at the effects as I did at myself...I was sad that I had grown up...That I'd become old enough to know that magic doesn't exist. Michael the car barrels through the henchmen and escapes to meet the children, who are waiting for him at "Club 30s". The children have been exploring the club, and think they have come to the wrong place, because it is abandoned and covered in cobwebs and dust. The pool table balls move before being touched, and the piano explodes when Katie tries to touch it, so the children leave and wait outside behind a fence. Katie peers over and sees the shadow of a car turn into Michael's shadow. Michael opens the door to the club, which glows with life on the inside. 
So begins (an extended version of) the famous "Smooth Criminal" video. This is the video in which Michael premiered his anti-gravity move...And although he used wires in this shoot, he later patented a pair of shoes that would allow a dancer to do the same move without wires. While Michael is busy flirting with flappers and defying gravity, his dear friend Katie is taken by the evil Frankie Lideo. Michael and the boys (PS one of them is Sean Lennon, John Lennon's son) 
go to save her, but Michael is separated from them in the process. Lideo tries to inject Katie with drugs, and when Michael attacks, the henchmen take him down. Katie scratches Lideo's face, and runs to save Michael, who is in fetal position on the ground ("I'm a lover, not a fighter!") Just then a lucky star goes by and Michael turns into a robot! Actually, he's more like a transformer with a deflective field. Katie runs to the top of a mountain to join the boys, as all the henchmen fire futilely at Michael. Lasers come out his mouth when he screams the signature "ooooooh!" and he eventually gets rid of all the henchman. Next...wait for it! Michael turns into a SPACESHIP! Frankie DeLido has gone to a giant laser in the mountain and shoots Michael down with it. Just when the evil Lideo has the children in his sights, Michael comes back and blows up the laser for good. Then he flies off into the universe. "Where's he going?" asks one of the boys. "He's leaving" says Katie "and he's not coming back". This is the part when I burst into tears...Considering how Michael Jackson has now left us, flown into space/heaven, as it were...And he isn't coming back. It almost seemed to foreshadow his early departure...But that's stretching things just a little too far Frances. Anyways, next scene is the kids sitting on the sidewalk (presumably they have no home...They are kind of reminiscent of Charlie Chaplains kid in "The Kid") Katie is upset that Michael left, so she goes off with her Teddy Bear to sulk in a corner. Then, Michael comes walking out of the smoke, dressed in his signature white suit. This is when I burst into tears...again. I couldn't help but think about Paris Jackson watching this film, and wishing for her daddy to come back...To magically reappear and walk out of the smoke. But he won't. And this is the danger of Hollywood...The magic can sometimes be too real, it's heartbreaking when you don't get the fairytale ending you've been wishing for.Michael takes the kids back to the Club 30s, but this time they are magically transported down a dark aisle of cables and boxes...Someone yells "Michael, where have you been? You're on in 1 minute". How could his producers know that he'd been hounded by the world's most evil drug dealer, and escaped him by turning into a car, a robot and a spaceship, all in one night? It's a very surreal moment...Skipper, the children's dog, has been waiting backstage the whole time. Michael goes on stage and sings a cover of The Beatles song "Come Together". Because the film is a montage of real life history, music videos, and a narrative in which Michael ends up going back on stage for a concert, one gets the sense that Michael's life really is magical...He is a super hero. A savior of children. and a rock star all in one. It helps that I watched this film so young, I was at that impressionable age where magic was still real (even though I had already begun to doubt Santa Claus, I still thought that those My Little Ponies with wings could actually fly...)
Not only that, but Michael Jackson's music was an integral part of my early Music education. I remember singing "We Are the Children" during a grade 2 concert...Of course, I grew out of Michael Jackson eventually...I remember scoffing when my friend from Saudi played Michael Jackson in her car in 1996...And talking with my mom and her friends about how "although he was a very talented man, he took some things too far, like grabbing his crotch". I had a Michael Jackson revival period that started the last year of high school, circa 2001 when Michael came out with "Invincible"...I had some good times dancing in Hong Kong clubs to "You Rock My World". The next year, back in Canada, I remember finding my parents "Dangerous" album in our cd collection and crying to "Gone Too Soon". Michael was in the news quite a lot after that...Martin Brashir's documentary, child abuse, Jackson hanging his baby over a railing, blah blah blah...It all kind of melts together for me...Until the "This Is It" tour was scheduled. I was mighty pissed when I realized I was going to be in London on a Monday this summer, and there weren't concerts schedules on Mondays...And then Michael died. I couldn't believe it. My roomate found out over facebook, but we couldn't back it up with anything on google...So I went to work, and forgot about it...that is until I logged into Twitter and the New York Times proclaimed "The King of Pop, Michael Jackson, is dead at 50". I gasped and scared everyone in the office. I taught my grade 6 ESL class "Heal the World", and when we watched the 1993 live super bowl version, I almost fell to my knees in tears...There was the Michael I remembered...the moonwalker Michael. The Michael of my childhood. The Michael who was going to heal the world and make everything okay. Now I'm all grown up, and it's not ok. Well, it's not perfect. It's not a Hollywood ending.
Thank you for trying to heal the world, Michael. Maybe now you can heal yourself.
Very well written I relate to all you have said.
ReplyDeleteWe grew up with his music, his magical energy and amazing dancing.
Thank you so much for sharing.