“Another world, another time — in the age of wonder. A thousand years ago, this land was green, until the crystal cracked. Then strife began, and two new races appeared — the cruel Skeksis, the gentle Mystics.”
This Sunday, the Browning Cinema at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center screened Jim Henson’s “The Dark Crystal” as part of its “Professor Pfinkelfunder’s $1 Films” series.
People talk about the movie like it was a fluke, a happy accident. They say stuff like “How did they let them make this?” and “It’s too dark for children!”
I hate this way of reading “The Dark Crystal.” The tendency to ascribe to coincidence what should be ascribed to genius is an awful one. We have to give Henson some credit — every choice that went into the making of “The Dark Crystal” was 100% deliberate.
For those who’ve never seen it, you have to. You know it’s going to be good because you can stream it for free on all the second-rate platforms: Tubi, PLEX, Pluto TV, Sling TV and The Roku Channel (as well as all the normal ones like Hulu, Peacock, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video). It’s from the man who made “The Muppets,” but it’s set in a bizarro fantasy/sci-fi world that prefigures all the darkest parts of the “The Lord of the Rings” movies and all the creepiest sets from the “Star Wars” prequels.
A big factor in the off-putting vibe of “The Dark Crystal” is the influence of mid-twentieth century New Age spirituality. One of the sources Henson cited for “The Dark Crystal” was “The Seth Material,” an occult work dictated via ouija board to a woman named Jane Roberts by an entity called Seth beginning in 1963.
Consequently, the narrative of “The Dark Crystal” is essentially Jungian. The cosmic (and genocidal) battle between the Mystics and the Skeksis isn’t merely a battle between good and evil. In fact, the monumental prologue rejects this framework. The Mystics aren’t heroes, merely “a dying race, numbly rehearsing the ancient ways in a blur of forgetfulness — but today, the ritual gives no comfort.” The Mystics need the Skeksis, the Skeksis need the Mystics — one is always incomplete without the other. The quest of Jen, the “gelfling” protagonist, is to reintegrate the two in much the same way psychoanalysts talk about reintegrating fractious pieces of our personas.
All the Mystics and Skeksis come in pairs with awesome names like the Master and the Emperor, the Chanter and the Chamberlain, the Alchemist and the Scientist, the Numerologist and the Treasurer, the Scribe and the Scroll-Keeper, the Cook and the Gourmand, the Weaver and the Ornamentalist, the Storyteller and the Satirist, etc. The scenes are packed with dozens of curious characters, brilliantly characterized by the puppet-makers and puppeteers — some scheming and effeminate, some violent and cruel, some kind and wise, some old and indifferent.
“The Dark Crystal” is mercifully withholding when it comes to lore, however. It drops tidbits in the names and the costumes and the props and the sets — just enough to tantalize you, to tempt you to browse the wikis and fan blogs, but not so much that it wears you out.
People act like “The Dark Crystal” was a fluke, but really, it’s the sum total of smart decisions like that. It’s the product of a Hollywood in which gonzo visionary geniuses like Henson worked side-by-side with prudent businessmen like Gary Kurtz, making movies that were both good and watchable. In our Hollywood, movies either insist on quality but fail to be watchable (e.g. “Megalopolis”) or insist on watchability but fail to be good (there’s too many to list here). Consider that before Kurtz intervened, Henson planned on doing all of the dialogue in fantasy languages with only partial subtitles.
“The Dark Crystal” was not an accident, not a case of a mad director miraculously getting everything he wanted. Henson was a man with a concept — the bright idea that children these days aren’t scared enough, that the twentieth century needed its own “Grimms’ Fairy Tales” — and a highly competent, level-headed team around him.
The result? “The Dark Crystal” is a masterpiece that’s just dark enough, no doubt still enchanting and terrifying the kids who caught it at the Browning this Sunday.
