Why You Should Watch Labyrinth Over Again
Either way, the film inspired countless hours of play. When my sister was born I was too superstitious, too invested with belief in the unreal, to actually complete the act of wishing her away as Sarah does to her baby brother in the film, but I did bust out some colored markers and write a book wherein Ashlie and I were charged with rescuing her from Jareth and his Labyrinth (the bulge did not come into play). I did take some creative liberty by involving a pet alligator who carried us on his back, and a portion whereby Ashlie and I received 80s green-eyeshadow makeovers to refresh us after falling into the Bog of Stench was cut from the final printing.
Eventually, girls grow up and they stop imagining things and they have to take on real-world responsibilities. I’m sure that the last time I buried Cheetara and General Scarlett I didn’t know it’d be final, but they’ve been gone for years now. No idea what Ashlie is doing these days (dancing, serving cocktails?). It seems strange that I never realized until just this year, when I revisited the Labyrinth DVD, that the film is an allegory for the process of leaving one’s childhood things behind.
Because she’d rather dress up and play outside, Sarah resents the responsibility her parents expect her to take for her new baby brother – the child of her husband’s second wife, as her mother appears to have died. The final straw is when it seems someone’s given away her most favorite teddy bear to baby Toby’s crib, as if, no longer a child, that someone had decided she ought not to feel entitled to him anymore.
Fortunately there is the Labyrinth and the beautiful Goblin King to alleviate all her pain. Although Jareth would seem to be the film’s primary antagonist, he’s bewildered by Sarah’s efforts to rescue Toby – Bowie portrays his compulsion for her, the delicate fear of betrayal, so brilliantly. Because that’s the role that he and his world serve for her; to make her forget, to prevent her assumption of adult roles. And as the world of the Labyrinth is populated by toys and creatures from Sarah’s bedroom, her inner sanctum – note the toy dogs, pictures and fantasy stuffed creatures that have lifelike correspondents within the Labyrinth – that escapist maze is actually a world she created.
In one of the film’s most piquant scenes, Sarah (in something of a trance after biting a mysterious peach) assumes the dress of one of her most prized treasures, a snow-globe doll implied to have been a gift from her mother, and dances with Jareth in a masquerade ball that’s equal parts elegant and grotesque. This scene touches on the awakening of, if not sexual, at least romantic appetite (you should have heard what Ashlie had to say about this bit).
What follows is the climax – a scene at the Labyrinth’s heart exactly like her room, where she can exist forever surrounded by the junk of her past. A doddering lady heaps adorable, beloved toys onto Sarah, who for a moment cannot recall what it is she is supposed to do. From there, she rejects all of her relics from the past — and ultimately, the Goblin King himself along with the seduction of his mad universe — with newfound vigor, determinedly navigating an illogical world of stairs while he, grieving, can only watch.
The lesson is, of course, young girls need to grow up someday, and returning relieved to the real world, feet on the ground, Sarah passes on the beloved Lancelot bear to Toby, a signal she is prepared to leave childhood things behind. However, what takes Labyrinth from the realm of “cute film” to quintessential film is its final minutes.
Its lesson is not so bleak as “grow up or not.” Alone in her room, Sarah is revisited by the friends from her imagination, who remind her they are just a call away should she ever need them.
“I don’t know why, but every now and again in my life — for no reason at all — I need you,” she says, heralding the joyous return of all of the creatures as the film closes with the ever-watchful owl avatar of the Goblin King taking flight from his post outside her window. It’s a reminder to retain that childhood whimsy, that one can always resurrect their big illogical dreams and the characters that populate them, and that in fact knowing that one is always free to do so is part of becoming an adult.
Every so often, and sometimes more often than other times, I need to re-visit Labyrinth. Everyone should. It’s a miracle! You’re alive!!