American movies for kids have entirely been handed over to Pixar and its swarm of major-studio animation clones. Animation is great, but I can’t recall the last good modestly scaled live-action movie about a normal kid who has to journey to a fantastical realm; I’m talking about your Last Starfighters, your Jumanjis, your NeverEnding Storys. (Harry Potter and the failed Narnia series don’t count, because they were top-loaded for blockbuster mega-franchise status.)
Turns out, the genre isn’t dead—it’s just moved abroad, and Seattle audiences have an opportunity to experience it at Northwest Film Forum’s Children’s Film Festival.
The Belgian-made Labyrinthus is an adventure film about a boy named Frikke (Spencer Bogart) who finds a USB key and a plastic black cube. The USB key contains an immersive computer game, and the cube is a camera with a mysterious power—if you take a picture of something with the cube, that something (a cat, a human, food) will appear in the game. When Frikke finds a real girl in the game, he has to figure out how to save her without becoming trapped in the game himself…
The Children's Film Festival runs January 22–February 7 at Northwest Film Forum.
