The Absurd Reality of Fantastic Mr. Fox's Bleak, Happy Ending and The Meaning of The Canis Lupus Scene

BenJepheneT

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Happy endings are commonplace in cinema history. It's a way to give audiences a sense of resolution and peace by the end of a film. It's an end where the man you've been rooting for the past hour or so has finally seen the end, propped himself against the cliff and light a cigar as the sunset rolls down the horizon. In other words, pure satisfaction.

I'm not dismissing films that purposely put sad or depressing endings. Those are movies made with an agenda and a hard-hitting message in mind, or set-up to have a sequel in mind. I'm talking about the common films you see. Films made for pure entertainment purposes and to do nothing but bring itself as an independent, quality picture. I'm talking about Cars before the sequel. I'm talking about Real Steel. I'm talking about Robin William's Jumanji. I'm talking about movies you put on Netflix just before you go to bed as pure, time-filling entertainment. The Predator from 1987; Ice Age from 2002; almost all of Pixar's portfolio - movies that kick you from behind, leave you in the edge of your seat, and sit you back just before the credits roll when you finally get to catch your breath and relish in the satisfaction.

Generally, happy endings are also most commonly associated with good endings. You need a reason for the characters to be happy. You can't just have them fuck about on the set for 102 minutes and give them a smile at the end, that's just making a Transformers sequel. You have to give them a sense of accomplishment not just to the protagonist and his posse but to the audience as well. Let them understand the man, put him in a good light, pray that the cinema-goers root for the guy and take him to the lowest of lows only for him to spring back to his highest high. And what better way to do that than to put your character on the right side of the fence, fighting against evil or ignorant principles? Fight evil, destroy the patriarchy, defeat wickedly and beat those who need a damn good thrashing when all others are too scared to do so. Judge Dredd and his willingness to go above and beyond to serve justice. The Kingsmen stopping the evil Samuel L. Jackson from plunging the world into madden chaos. Even Butch from Pulp Fiction, who managed to save Marsellus from gay gimp rape and got not only freedom but Zed's Chopper in the process. Have them defeat evil or overcome their obstacles and walk away having both satisfied and accomplished and you'll have the audience doing the same.

But what about Mr. Fox?




Yes, Fantastic Mr. Fox, the 2009 stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's book with the same name by Wes Anderson about a fox who's schemes of returning to his glory days of thieving have plunged not only his family but his nephew AND his neighborhood into an all-out holocaust hunt by three farmers whose farms have been raided by none other than the fox himself. Hearing from this, you wouldn't think Mr. Fox is such a great man. He's the one who single-handedly flushed his family down the drain of chaotic terror orchestrated by gun-toting farmers where one of them is known by the whole forest to be a neurotic psychopath who would wear a fox's severed tail as a necktie to show his intent on killing the damn mutt, in which he did, and in which Mr. Fox already knew beforehand and provoked nonetheless. He's a man who can't control his instincts and whose raison d'être is to, in his own words-

“I think I have this thing where everybody has to think I'm the greatest. And if they aren't completely knocked out and dazzled and slightly intimidated by me, I don't feel good about myself.”

He might be charming, due to the fact that he's voiced by every middle-aged gay man's wet dream George Clooney, but that doesn't deter the fact that in the core, he's egoistical, self-centered and selfish. Look past the glamour and the charisma and you'll get a self-centered canine who can't think beyond his bare instincts. For a guy like him, you'd think he'd learn his lesson at the end, and that he should think of others and keep his instincts in check and instead, replace it with his love for his family and care for the forest animal. You'd think he'd be enlightened that he's not the only animal in the woods, and that he should watch himself so that his actions doesn't harm others.

Well, as you've expected, you're wrong. Instead of a farm he raided a supermarket that closes early on weekends WITH his family and friends that, as the panning shot reveals, belongs to none other than the same three farmers whose barns Mr. Fox raided just prior a movie hour ago.



Before I carry on, I should probably- no, definitely recommend you to watch Mr. Fantastic Fox. It's only about an hour and twenty minutes including the end credits. If you're interested in it and have cash to spare, I'd recommend you go watch it. If you don't have cash, aren't willing to use Amazon Prime, and is a broke ass bitch who's love for filmography isn't enough to rub two nickles together and obtain a copy of the movie legally, I'd recommend you go watch it.

Right? Yeah? You've watched it? We cool? Good, moving on-

As the movie goes on, you realize that Mr. Fox hasn't solved the issue. The farmers are still on their tail, with the bold exception of Mr. Fox. They're currently living in the sewers, away from their natural comfort. The children are starving. The real estate is cramped. No one's ever sleeping soundly and it's only a matter of time before another flood of apple cider hits their quarters and blast them away into hiding or eventually, oblivion. And Mr. Fox didn't' seem to have learned his lesson. He's the same fox as before. He's now a little bit laden with past experiences and learnt lessons, but nevertheless the same fox as before. Naturally magnetic, egocentric, self-thinking and in some levels, inconsiderate and thoughtless.

It's a bleak, apocalyptic end for the animals, all because Mr. Fox couldn't control his own instincts and has to relive that itch, steal a dozen geese, ducks, and chickens, whereby the price is repaid in full by the three farmers, quite literally, blowing up their damn mountain.

I am not kidding.

So why? Despite all disaster looking plain for not only the animals but for the audience to see; despite the eventual trouble we'd know would come kicking in like a storm; despite the obvious disadvantageous trade-off of Mr. Fox's one scratch of his itch-

Why does Mr. Fox remain so happy and cheerful?
Why does a bleak resolution end on such a high note? Wouldn't that clash with the tone of the movie? And even so, wouldn't the opposite do the same thing? After all that digging, all that self-reflective dialogue Mr. Fox had with his wife, all that talk with his son Ash and all that talk about sacrificing himself to save his nephew, Mr. Fox hasn't changed a single bit besides caving into the very same instincts that dug him into this mess in the first place. Excluding the fact that the other characters were pulled into this all the same, why is this ending presented as a happy ending? It's in no way a good ending. Mr. Fox didn't beat his inner evil nor the farmers. He only prolonged the inevitable. As for his inner instincts, Wes Anderson could've made a skit where Mr. Fox sat down with his alter ego, had a pint together, shook hands and fumble in premarital sex together right there on the bar stool.

Nothing's changed. Nothing's beat. Things got worse and shit's hit not only the fan but the ventilation system as well, in which the whole room is filled with the shit smell of a messy outcome to a disaster that was needlessly provoked.

Mr. Fox gave a beehive a whole baseball bat and yet, he's granted a dance and the prospect of a better future in the ending. Not only that, the ending itself was hailed by critics along with the movie. If it wasn't for Up, Fantastic Mr. Fox would've snatched a Best Animation in the Oscars. So how? How does it do it? How does it leave on such an apocalyptic look into the future and yet present it in such a hauntingly gleeful note?
And I know it's starting to get a little sensory overload up in this crib. You're still wondering about the dancing animals, the absolute acrobatics of the characters, the fact that both animals and humans can converse with each other without a hitch and the overall reality of the movie itself. You're thinking to yourself, What is this absurd reality in this movie this damn guy keeps trying to convince me to watch?

And I'm here to tell you how, and that includes the absurd reality and an established rules shown on the prologue, giving context to not only the film's plot but to the theme as well. It is these two factors that lend a hand into creating Fantastic Mr. Fox's bleak, happy ending, and I'm going to go through it one at a time, and explain how it worked, and how it wouldn't've worked any other way.

The Absurd Reality

From the few scenes I've shown you from the start, you could probably guess this isn't a film hindered by conventional laws of nature. Here are animals dressed in pinstripe suits, speak elegantly, has a mind in human culture, contains moving companies run by squirrels and rabbits, has real estate worked by weasels and has its own newspaper company along with a legal firm in a dam by the river bank. This is the tone the whole movie runs on and man, does it stretch it to its absolute limits.




Yet, this is reality in which Fantastic Mr. Fox bases its story upon. It is a world where rats are hired to protect apple cider, and animals can ride tiny versions of human-built vehicles. This is the one pole that holds Fantastic Mr. Fox's cheerful tone all the way, even towards its desolate resolution.

In a way, the ludicrous fantasy of the characters interacting within a generic, true-to-life backdrop helps build the ending along with the whole movie.

To explain this, I'd have to give you two options, which were the same ones the filmmakers were given upon production of the movie. The script's written, the actors made their voices, the puppets have been motioned, captured, and ready to put on film. Now's left the cinematic display of the ending itself, along with the editing. Do you:

(A) Persist with the movie's tone, not cause mass whiplash for our audience and present the ending through a near farcical pair of lens in order to hone the experience down harder and further, but act against the prospect and obvious disadvantage Mr. Fox had put himself and the people around him in and play it off as nothing but a little humor.

or

(B) Make the ending as it is, and show how severe the consequences of simply delving into your instincts would bring. It might clash with the movie's tone and cause an epidemic of whiplash among viewers but with it, it shows that the ending is so hopeless and devastating that not even a happy rainbow could save the day.

Evidently, the filmmakers went with their choice, took the one-way express ticket to the end and never looked back since.




This is why the ending is so memorable to people, not because of the message and theme it presents (which will be discussed later), but because of how it clashes with the truth it presents to you. Through its ridiculous reality of talking beavers and acrobatic foxes, it honed the ending into people's mind as to how it presented itself in such a contrasting tone. It's like a portrait of your dead grandmother with the Snapchat dog filter on her face. It is the way Fantastic Mr. Fox shows its ending that makes it so hailed among movie fans, and remembered so fondly. It may be a double-edged sword towards its ending, but it's a trade-off done right.

But you might ask: what's the point? Why is the movie being special for the sake of it? Are all these people blind? It's just some ploy to kick the movie into a tone and ending it was never meant to belong in. It's like watching a reverse tonal shift of Tarantino's Death Proof or Hancock. It's where the ending should've shifted tones and didn't. This isn't remembered as a good move. This is just a director covering his inability to do good tonal shifts, like it's contemporary Up (not that big of a shift but when two old men began fighting atop a blimp with one of them tied to a house, that's what I call a pretty big shift).

You would be right, if it wasn't for the reality it established from the start, in which I would begin discussing in right about... now.

The Established Rules of The Absurd Reality

All this talk about karate animals would begin to plant seeds of doubt in your mind. If these animals are so unconstrained by physics and nature, what if they can easily defeat the humans, strip the movie of its suspense and ruin the experience right from the start? The absurd reality makes these animals capable to close-quarter, hand-to-hand combat, stunning Olympic-level gymnastic and galaxy brain strategies to outsmart their human opponents. Wouldn't that work against the cat-hunt-mouse theme the movie originally wanted you to have?

Those questions would persist if it wasn't for the prologue, setting up not only the story but also establishing ground rules for the movie's reality.



During the first five minutes of the film, Mr. Fox brings his about-to-be-Mrs. Miss Fox for a raid at the local farm. Throughout the five minutes, they are seen in an expertly choreographed gymnastic scene of dodging cameras, leaping over obstacles in T-poses and calmly avoiding all the humans' attention. Here the film establishes what sort of a movie it is by showing you how far they are willing to stretch the physical attributes of the animals you will see in the film. Then, just as they're about to escape, Mr. Fox gets intrigued by a chain, he pulls it, and in the trap he gets, well, trapped. Along with his lovely fiancee.




So why didn't acrobat their way out of the trap?

If they can swing over fences, shimmy over clothing lines and leap over logs, why can't they squeeze through some metal bars and leap their way back?

It's because the trap is made by humans. Right from the start, the movie establishes a very simple rule - animals can't beat humans. They can only thwart their plans and run away instead of facing them head on. They can't acrobat fight with the humans not because they will lose, but because the film doesn't allow them to. They can only slither away and escape, just like how Mr and Miss Fox dug their way through the ground and out of the trap.

Along with the whole movie's duration, this rule can be seen very clearly as it is applied everywhere. During the final act, the animals didn't war with the humans - they merely set the some parts of the town on fire as distraction so Mr. Fox can get his bike and save his nephew. It was a quick run-and-smash mission, and it wasn't even that big of a smash. They only brought Mr. Fox some time and space to avoid the farmers and get the fuck out. They never faced the humans, they only distracted them.
During the rescue of Kristofferson, Ash ran through the barn that somehow simulated a whackbat court in order to release the beagle and distract the farmers so that they can escape. This scene shows not only Ash's talent and character growth, but it's also an example of the established rule of the movie's ridiculous reality. Ash may have dodged bullets like Neo throughout this scene, he never directly confronted the farmers, even with his new found karate skills. He only used it to craft an escape route for the gang. Never had he directly face Boggis, Bunce and Bean in the standoff, only avoiding their shots.
And here where it all ties up. The absurd reality, chained to the ground by an established rule shown from the start of the movie and have been displaying examples of it repeatedly throughout the whole film, thus staying true to the suspense of having to escape the farmers despite being able to act as they have, as it's been said very early on that animals can't defeat humans, they can only thwart their plans and ruin them.

So what does it all have to do with the ending?

Well, I'll admit - I did leave something out for a grand reveal.

The tone of the whole movie is a prospect of a better future. Even during the escape and the digging, there's always something better waiting around the corner. The hole underground where Mr. Fox lives in sucks? Well, there's a tree for them to live in. Stranded underground? Mr. Fox found a way upstairs, right under the barns of Boggis, Bunce and Bean where they're currently NOT guarding very safely. Kristofferson kidnapped? Plan, by Mr. Fox himself, along with Badger's demolition expertise and the help of other animals. Stand-off against the farmers in Bean's farm? Angry beagle with rabbies saves the day, yo.

Throughout the film, the characters are never really at a dead-end. They're just in trouble. Trouble they could get out of with the help of the absurd reality backing the film.

And speaking of absurd reality, there's also something I left out during the whole "established rules" thing. Along with 'animals can't beat humans', there's also one thing they can't beat - their instincts.

In the cage where Mr. Fox got voluntarily trapped, he made a promise to live a proper life from then on out. And what's the plot of the story?

Mr Fox, a family man, goes back to his ways of stealing, unable to resist his animal instincts. However, he finds himself trapped when three farmers decide to kill him and his kind.

Yeah, guess that worked out well, huh?

So what's up with the ending? What does the absurd reality and its established rules have to do with it being so bleak and yet so cheerful?

And here's where things change.

This movie was never about Mr. Fox seeing the better of his ways and changing to be a better man and a better father. No, this is a movie about accepting your inner instincts, be in peace with it and run the middle ground.

Throughout the three acts of the movie, Mr. Fox is shown two extremes. On the first third, he's shown to have being bared from his instincts, and working as a responsible father and a legal man. And that is the life he wants to live. He doesn't want to "live in a hole" anymore, and he's gonna "do something about it", in which the second act comes along where we're shown another extreme which sees Mr. Fox actively indulging into his cravings, stealing geese and living the high life, and that is the life which gets not only him but the whole damn forest into trouble.

It is during the Canis Lupis scene where Mr. Fox finally finds the middle ground.



Throughout the whole movie, we've been given gags on how Mr. Fox has a "phobia of wolves". Spoiler alert: it's not. It's his fear towards his own wild side. It's his fear of indulging into his senses and the dull life leading outside its reaches. He's scared of it because it exists as an imbalance to both the life he wants to lead and has to lead. It keeps his irresponsible and unhappy at the same time. Which is why he fears it.

It is only then, during the Canis Lupis scene, where Mr. Fox comes to terms with his "phobia" - his inner animal, and "wishes him good luck". The good luck was never directed towards the wolf. It was towards himself. It is when Mr. Fox finally meets his instincts face to face, and comes to recognize and be in peace with. Hence, he's now neither afraid nor fully indulged into his instinct. He'd sat on both side of the fence, and now he's meeting his instincts right in the middle.

This is why the ending is set in a supermarket. Mr. Fox is no longer some chicken thief from the barnyard. He's a responsible father now. Hence, the change from a wild nature to a more civilized scenery. This doesn't mean he's fully converted. He's not taking things from the supermarket legally, mind you. In the end, he's still a thief - an animal of his instincts. It is in his blood to steal and take, only this time he's in control, and not doing it out of impulse or fear. He's stealing because at the end of the day, he's a fox. He's a man of his instincts, and that is what he'd come to terms with.

And this is why the absurd reality persists in the ending. The happy tone carried by the reality is brought along here because truly, this is a happy ending. It was never about Mr. Fox seeing the error of his old ways. It's about him seeing the truth to himself as a fox and as a family man, and meeting both at the middle.

But that doesn't mean it isn't bleak. And this is where the established rules of the absurd reality comes in.

Though Mr. Fox managed to escape and thwart the farmers, he never really defeated them. They're still sitting atop the sewer cap, waiting to cap his ass as soon as he shows one peep of his dry-cleaned tail. Their mindset is that animals still need food and water, and they'll come up eventually. And Mr. Fox eluded them robbing the supermarket they own in the first place. Typical. Yes, though it's a gamer moment for Mr. Fox, they're still there, waiting with their workers and guns. Eventually, they will come back, and Mr. Fox would have to face them again. They were never beaten, they were just delayed. The inevitable will still come, as truthful as it is.

To further illustrate this, I'll explain the ending through the context of the song Wes Anderson so cleverly chose for the end credits scene.



The song Let Her Dance by The Bobby Fuller Four talks about a man seeing a girl whom he once danced with now dancing with her brand new love affair. Just like the movie, the song carries this cherry, hopeful tune as it sings about a man watching his once beloved now dancing in the arms of another one. Then, in a twist to the end, the man claimed that he'll find a new love one day, and that he'll dance with his new love, just for his once beloved to see. So the man came to terms with himself and in every sense of the word, let her dance with him, let her dance all night long.

In a way, you can correlate Mr. Fox with both the man and his once beloved. The man is now stuck in a dilemma of a lost love now dancing with another man, just like how Mr. Fox had doomed his community to live under a sewer, far from their previous, natural comfort. But then Mr. Fox had come to terms with the inner demon that had plunged them into this mess in the first place, which goes with the man finding a new love just to shove it in his once beloved's face. Though the trouble isn't solved, at least Mr. Fox had found peace within the cause.

And in another way, the established rule also plays a role in the song as the man, and this is where Mr. Fox plays the role of the once beloved. The trouble comes to Mr. Fox, but Mr. Fox escapes from trouble and is now dancing with his understanding and acceptance of his inner instinct. Now the trouble stands on the sideline, watching Mr. Fox dance with his instincts, knowing that one day, trouble will have a chance to come back, just like how Mr. Fox never defeated the humans and only delayed their comeuppance once again and thus, letting Mr. Fox dance for now.

Mr. Fox will never leave trouble. He is a fox, after all. He's an animal, and that's the truth to himself. He steals, robs, thieves and takes from people bigger than him. As a fox, he'll never be safe, and his family will be endangered along with the friends he cared about. He'll never know peace, and can only live underground as the fox he is, regardless it being a hole in the earth or a sewer.

But at least he's happy.


 

BenJepheneT

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hey man this is just my interpretation of the movie. you're free to disagree and bring cases in as to why you think so. i'd actually like that. at the very least, we're giving this movie the due credit it deserved since a fucken decade ago.

might do another analysis on Initial D and adolescence, idk
 

AliceShiki

Magical Girl of Love and Justice
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hey man this is just my interpretation of the movie. you're free to disagree and bring cases in as to why you think so. i'd actually like that. at the very least, we're giving this movie the due credit it deserved since a fucken decade ago.

might do another analysis on Initial D and adolescence, idk
It was an interesting read, though I never watched the movie, so I don't have much to comment on myself...
 

Yorda

Villainess Yorda the Virtuous Flower of Evil
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The overall flow of your review is,
(1) This is what other movies are like. This is the way they unfold their stories for affect on the audience.
(2) What about Mr. Fox, the story I will be introducing now.
(3) Mr. Fox isn't like the other stories I mentioned.
(4) The world is weird and the ending is different.
(5) The physics and laws of the world.
(6) The actual meaning of the story.

General thoughts,
(1)You really have your own no-holds-barred style. George Clooney ...
(2)You might like the word 'incorrigible'
(3)"It's in no way a good ending. Mr. Fox didn't beat his inner evil nor the farmers. He only prolonged the inevitable."

Overall, the idea of a good (protagonist) vs evil (antagonist) is a very modern and western construct. I remember that a lot of good stories, folktales and Kafka's metamorphosis, do not follow the simplistic structure of basing a story on morality! They can be deeply contemplative while being completely disengaged from issues of idealized western morality.
(4)Have you heard of the 4 infinite and insatiable human desires acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, and love of power? Vanity, in this case manifesting as Mr. Fox's need for recognition, is the primary focus. Perhaps this film is targeting an audience who can psychologically identify with Mr. Fox's incorrigible nature?
 
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