In fairy tales there are answers, in fairy tales there are inspirations, imagination, advice. The new Mr. Clax Academy, directed by Mackay Kaulski, gives us clichés from fairy tales, but it is difficult to find answers in them.
The answers and the fantasies are in the classics, in the myths that open up the world. Some cartoons age better than others. The story of princesses saved by a kiss in their sleep has grown horribly old. Sometimes you can go back to the classics and change and update some outdated elements. And sometimes it's better to put the fairy tales on the shelf and let them be a document of their time.
So, V Mr. Clex's Academy The main character Adash Niezgodka was replaced by the heroine Ada. A simple solution, but actually a good one, because if the school was only for boys, today it would be intolerable and resemble a seminary for priests, and no longer resemble a military academy.
Ada lives in New York. His father is missing. The mother is constantly looking for the father and neglecting the daughter. One day, Ada is invited to the academy, where she experiences various adventures. The academy is a fairy tale, the characters of the fairy tale live in it, and the school is cleared with various fairy tale entrances.
If the mother tells Ada on her way to the academy that there are answers in fairy tales, let's see what fairy tales the film shows us and what answers they give us.
The fairy tale and fairy tale characters we meet at the academy include the unicorn, the mermaid, the dwarfs, Daedalus and Icarus, Snow White and the little match girl. The film's references also include fairy tales that the story touches on. The academy is like Hogwarts – an obvious reference, and Piotr Fronchevsky is like Morpheus when he tells Ada that she has to choose something. The tales depicted in the film are a mix of classics and films that have shaped the imagination in recent years, which are, after all, also classics. However, this classic is not a reinterpretation or revival. quoted simply. So, in reality, these tales tell us nothing new.
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An example that contains a spoiler: Ada and Albert, her friend from the academy, are looking for a friend who disappeared from nowhere and why. For a moment they find themselves in different fairy tales. Here Snow White is eating an apple, there Alice is looking for a rabbit. By the way, the apple was a funny joke. “If I were you, I wouldn't eat it,” says Ada, but not to Snow White, but to herself. I don't know why they met Alice. Why did they end up in the fairy tale about the little match girl? Probably showing dark scenes because it's basically a dark and gruesome tale about the death of a poor child.
Spoiler again: Albert gets lost in the Chronicles Girl's tale. How did this happen? For what? Ada later finds him frozen, sitting on a mound of ice. It looks like some movie about Titanic. All in all, a classic, but I don't know what the story is with Albert. Maybe the sequel will talk about that.
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Well, but since the quoted tales give us few answers, perhaps the tale we are currently watching in the cinema, ie. The story about Mr. Clex and his school provided the answer. I think the purpose of this school is to save the imagination.
Ada lives in New York. Probably in some Polish neighborhood, because he shouts in Polish to the taxi driver on the street and his neighbor is also Polish. It's kind of like a modern day Greenpoint, although the neighbor, a doctor played by Piotr Fronczewski, who lives in an apartment full of old books, doesn't look like a typical guy from Greenpoint, but that's what fantasy is for.
Ada goes to the academy with several other children. We meet a Ukrainian woman sitting on the steppe in a white dress embroidered with red flowers, a Japanese woman coming to school from her oriental martial arts lessons, a boy from Spain playing the guitar and singing serenades. Upon arrival at the academy, the children drink water from the magical fountain to start speaking a common language. Ada doesn't drink because she doesn't want to. This common language is Polish.
Fantasy is fantasy, but do we really need to use so many stereotypes in 2023 to have a group of kids with different looks go to the same school? Is it a fantasy, let alone a fairy tale, to imagine that Mr. Clex's academy has children with different skin tones and straight or curly hair?
Mr. Clex's lessons are learning or an exercise in imagination. In practice, they sound like a story about positive thinking, deep breathing, focus, and not making excuses. First grades are about not saying “but”. It is better to say so, – asserts Professor Klex. And if you want to talk to animals, first learn to listen to them.
Then the boy in the wheelchair says he wants to be a rugby player. Unfortunately, we don't get Clex's educated response. Or it could be: get the rich to pay higher taxes so that the state can provide great sports education for disadvantaged children, an excellent health system and a welfare state that supports disabled people and their carers. Then every child sitting in a wheelchair will be able to fulfill their sports and other dreams. Fantasy is imagination!
We published it a while ago A text about the idea of a European Citizens' Assembly, in which randomly selected EU residents participate. The idea is similar to the ideas of citizens' assemblies or the “third chamber of the parliament”, which Shimon Holovnia talked about before the elections.
That randomly selected people consider the shape of the country? Well, it sounds as fantastical as ideas about the eight-hour workday, universal education, voting for all citizens, or abortion rights. And no, the latter still sounds like a strange fairy tale to some.
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Mr. Clex's Academy is an entertaining family movie. Not so interesting, unfortunately. It's a shame because the potential for this story is huge. But a check on multiculturalism, a boy in a wheelchair, and a lesson on empathy aren't enough. Imagination has great power. But sometimes it's not enough when we don't know why the characters are doing something, why and what the end result is.
It's a shame that between product placement and racial or national stereotyping, we couldn't add something more than Professor Clex Kolzing's speech. This film will age as a document of a time that sadly lacked imagination.