T w e n t y S i d e d

Time to close out my argument (such as it is) and the movie. As the dance sequence ends the story transitions back to a more straight-forward growing up/coming of age aspect. Sarah has to make her final choice then prove that she has mastered the lesson. Jareth now will appear in black (see the screenshot in the previous post), representing his ultimate role as villain and adversary. And of course, having proved she is the master (drink), Sarah will be “rewarded” through ultimate understanding.

We return to the fantasy masquerade ball. This is kind of icky, so we’ll just bust this all down. Which, in a manner of speaking, supports my supposition that this little sexual detour that closes out the middle act was kind of ad-libbed into the movie by Jim Henson. Or somebody, but like I demonstrated, this was his baby all along. A clock starts chiming, and Sarah knows that means…something. She breaks away from Jareth, much to his disappointment, and starts frantically searching for an exit. And, well; the world starts falling down. Symbolism and Metaphor punch you right in the face as the scene literally shatters and Sarah finds her normal self falling, falling, falling, into a junk yard. She is immediately approached by the “Junk Lady,” some scripts refer to her as “an old crone” as well. The Junk Lady has a mountain of…stuff…stuck to her. Pots and pans, small furniture, toys, books. Let’s put it plainly: if you dumped out the entire contents of a house filled with all your “stuff” that was ever important to you, then had the Prince of All Cosmos roll it all up into a Katamari, that’s the Junk Lady. Sarah, still at least somewhat under the influence of the peach, knows she’s looking for something; something important, something she loves. The Junk Lady begins handing her things from Sarah’s room; her stuffed animals, books, etc. Soon her possessions are piled all around and on top her, so that she resembles the junk lady. Sarah feebly protests, but accepts these important things as they are handed to her. She perceives herself to be safely back in her room as the Junk Lady hands her the stuffed bear, Lancelot to hold. Sarah is still bothered and spots her favorite book, Labyrinth, on her desk. She begins to read, reciting the lines from the beginning of the movie. As she completes the line about reaching the castle, she declares all of the “stuff” to be “junk.” She stands and begins shaking everything off, shouting that she needs to save Toby. As the walls of her bedroom collapse like the vision of the ball earlier, she finds Didymus and Ludo pulling her out of a pile of junk in the junkyard.

This is, of course, the final rejection of childish things. First Corinthians and all that; “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” There are still two more lessons in the story, however. After the battle of Goblin Town (and Hoggle redeeming himself), Sarah leaves her friends behind to confront the Goblin King alone. Because that’s just how it works in stories. Seems a cop out after the lessons that life doesn’t work the way it does in storybooks…and yet it is still thematically true for Sarah. This is about her…everyone else is a fictional character. Her three friends express their understanding, but offer their help “…should you need us.” As much as I mock the “I must face him alone” (half a drink) plot point, this is actually is an important moment. Hoggle, Didymus, and Ludo are, after all; imaginary. They are creatures of fantasy and products of her childhood. She may have chosen to grow up already but she still has to “prove” herself to Jareth. If she took her friends into the castle with her, they would be useless anyway. And then she would be worried about them, or trying to figure out how she is supposed to beat the Goblin King without her friends. That she realizes this is an important milestone, regardless of the fact that it’s tied up in a common trope.

The next-to-last “song” in the movie is much more of a poem set to music. Sarah searches the Escher-like interior of the castle, occasionally spotting Toby or Jareth appearing randomly in doorways. We are shown explicitly that Sarah is bound by gravity and physics, at least from her point of view, while Jareth freely inverts himself and seemingly teleports. All the while, Bowie sings “Within You:”

(Sharp and biting)
How you turned my world, you precious thing
You starve and near exhaust me

(pleading)
Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you

(angry)
I move the stars for no one

(pleading again)
You’ve run so long
You’ve run so far
Your eyes can be so cruel
Just as I can be so cruel
Though I do believe in you
Yes I do

(plaintively)
Live without the sunlight
Love without your heartbeat

I, I can’t live within you

I can’t live within you

(sigh)

(sadly, resigned)
I, I can’t live within you

Jareth is the personification of her fantasies. I’m sure you could make an argument from Freudian or Jungian psychology about which parts of her mind are being expressed. In this we can make sense of how Sarah’s journey hasn’t only been about playing make-believe as a child, or being tempted by bad behaviors such as chewing gum and watching tv, but also about sexual maturity. While the core of the story, and likely the origin of the story, is simply about a child growing up, at some point (as I’ve argued) Henson added these more mature themes. Consider they center so heavily on Bowie’s performance and music; this would have been likely too creepy to pass muster if Bowie had played against a clearly-juvenile actress. Leon/Leon: The Professional/The Professional was still a decade away, and considering the complaints that film received for having a twelve-year old Natalie Portman portraying a child play-acting “sexy” behavior she had seen her mother and older sister use to influence her father and other men; having a more childlike Sarah exploring vaguely sexual themes with a much older man would have been scandalous.

Of course, as I previously mentioned, Connelly was originally cast years before the film was released and a good part of a year before filming began. Jim Henson is on record claiming he chose her because Connelly captured just the right moment between girlhood and womanhood. I have also found some mention of the fact that Connelly “matured” quite a bit between casting and when filming wrapped. So, I kind of doubt Henson had the more mature ideas in mind when he cast then fourteen-year-old Jennifer Connelly. But…once Bowie started bringing in music ideas, maybe after some costuming, and after months of Connelly aging, I believe Henson saw an opportunity to tweak his story.

Back to Jareth, we see in the final song Sarah’s own fantasies made flesh chastising but ultimately begging her. Read the following as Sarah addressing her own fantasies and desires:

SARAH: (to Jareth) Give me the child.

JARETH: (stops singing) Sarah beware…I have been generous up until now, but I can be cruel.

SARAH: Generous…? What have you done that’s generous?

JARETH: Everything! Everything that you wanted I have done…you ask the child to be taken, I took him…you cowered before me, I was frightening…I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you…I’m exhausted from living up to your expectations, isn’t that generous?

SARAH (reciting the lines from the book again): Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the goblin city…my will is as strong as yours, and my king…

JARETH: Stop! Wait, look Sarah, look what I’m offering you! (shows Sarah the crystal) Your dreams!

SARAH: …and my kingdom’s as great…

JARETH: I ask for so little…just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want.

SARAH: (trying to remember what to say next) (to herself) …kingdom’s as great…? Damn, I can never remember that line…

JARETH: Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave!

SARAH: (thinking, her face lights up as she remembers the final line)…You have no power over me!

The clock chimes. Jareth tosses the crystal in the air as his face falls in dismay. The crystal lands in Sarah’s hands and pops like a bubble; Jareth disappears in the transition.

Sarah finds herself back in her house, near the front door. She first runs upstairs to check on her step-brother Toby. He is fast asleep in his crib, and she returns her stuffed bear Lancelot to his side, where she found it earlier. Sarah returns to her bedroom and sits at her dresser, looking at herself in the mirror. She hears the front door open and her parents call out to her. She turns to answer them, but when she turns back, she sees Ludo in the mirror. He tells her “goodbye,” but when she looks behind her, nothing is there. And yet, once again, Didymus is in the mirror repeating the message, but also adds “…and remember fair maiden, should you need us?” Didymus fades out to be replaced by Hoggle, who continues “Yes…should you need us, for any reason at all?”

Sarah, near tears, replies “I need you, Hoggle.” And with growing conviction “I don’t now why, but every now and again in my life, for no reason at all…I need you, all of you…” At which point Sarah turns and finds all her friends, even the Fireys and the Goblins, everyone from the story; except Jareth, of course…he was part of her psyche all along…pouring from her closet. They proceed to have a grand party together.

Sarah has become the master of her childlike fantasies. They’re still important; she still *needs* her imagination and a certain aspect of her childhood play, but it can’t rule her. She has denied her…ego? Someone who has studied this subject more can answer that. I never made it past Psych. 102 as an elective. Or was it 201? Doesn’t matter. You get the point.

And that’s it. What I believe is the honest answer to why Labyrinth has this subplot in the middle of the movie about David Bowie playing with his balls while fairy tale princess Jennifer Connelly stares at him with near-naked hunger. David Bowie is just David Bowie…you can’t put that in a box and seal it. And when Connelly showed up able to portray a more mature Sarah than was originally intended, Henson just went with it. He never shied away from mature story content, even if he usually didn’t go nearly as far out-of-his way to point to it as he did in Labyrinth. And maybe Labyrinth‘s initial poor showing kept him from embracing anything nearly as mature in the future…at least explicitly.

“But the owl, man! What about the owl!!!”

The owl does not signify. It’s not Jareth “but he’s real, somehow”, it’s not the power of imagination, it’s not God and it’s not the Devil. If the owl is anything, it’s the omniscient narrator who told us the story in the form of a movie. Yes, early on the owl was, in Jim Henson’s own words “vaguely…the symbol of the Goblin King.” My own reading indicates that became more vague as the film evolved, so much so that its appearance has no meaningful connection with the story other than “story commences” and “story ends.” But if you want to introduce the idea that the “Goblin King” is some kind of real multi-dimensional being who advocates for make believe the way a “god” or “faerie” does in a modern deconstruction of a myth, be my guest.

See you next week!

Paige Francis He/him