Celestine (Mackenzie Foy) is a mouse. She lives in a world that is ran by (what I am arguing is) a communist regime. It starts with orphans that are being raised by the community and are frighten into submission by their superiors.
No one is supposed to be an individual. Everyone is supposed to do as they are told for the greater good of the society. The mice are trained to follow orders for the greater good and question nothing. This organization of society is much like a communist country.
Celestine fights against those ideals. She wants to be artistic. However, her job is to collect teeth from little bears to be used on mice, nothing more and nothing less.
The mice who collect the most teeth are regarded with indifference, but the underachievers are criticized and threatened. The teeth, “[their] incisors”, are needed for the mice to be able to gnaw through anything. If Celestine does not collect “fifty teeth”, she is damaging the general society she lives in, like communists who fail the mother land.
Ernest is just a poor, outcast bear trying to get by as a starving musician. He lives in a more capitalist society. The members of the bear world are trying to make money however they can, wherever they can. When the son of the bear family asks how much he will get from the “fairy mouse”, he demands two quarts even though the money is coming from a mythical place. They bears want money over anything else.
Even when a “fellow bear” tries to make a living as a street musician, the police take his instruments, his livelihood essentially, and expect him to “pay” to get his stuff back. Being “honest working folk” is most important. Being a wandering musician is looked down on. However, what defines honest work?
The family of bears with the sweets shop and the teeth shop are the main representations of the bear capitalist society. Father-Bear rots the teeth of the other bears. Mother-Bear replaces the teeth. And the cycle begins again. This family is making their wealth off of private business and tricking society into using each business to fuel the other. “Daddy rots people’s teeth on one side of the street and Mommy replaces them on the other side.” They do this “to make money”; that is the only reason they give their son for their career choices. Is this really an honest living?
Similarly, when Ernest has his nightmare, he does have it about mice. He is afraid of them taking all of his food away. Allowing Celestine into his life is a big step, but he is afraid of her consuming it and making his life even more difficult.
However, it is these two character’s artistic abilities that bring them together. Their painting and music separate them from society but make them the best of friends. In the end, they need nothing (not even color for these two characters) besides each other.
Tropes and idioms of this film!
I hope you enjoyed my blogs for the week! See you next week, I promise!!!