Let us start the year with a classic, a real ‘page-turner’ but for movies, one that in 2024 celebrates its 30-year anniversary. The Pagemaster is a hybrid between live-action and animation starring Macaulay Culkin and Christopher Lloyd with the voices of Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Stewart, Leonard Nimoy and many others. It is a dive into nostalgia for a certain generation and let it be known that within the next two or three months this will be the fil rouge for this movie-of-the-moth column; I already have two or three ‘classics’ in mind that touched in various ways our childhood.
The Pagemaster depicts the wonderful story of a child who faces his fears; his journey starts because he gets lost in a library and falls down, but by doing so he enters the fantastic realm of animation and written worlds. You may also argue that he just suffered from a minor concussion and hallucinated the event, which is a pretty spot on interpretation.
I don’t know why, but I remember this movie – in my child’s memory – as this epically long ‘epic’, a journey that could have even been three hours long. In reality it clocks in at 1 hour and 15 minutes. Maybe that is just part of the magic of the movie; probably the eyes of a child with which I watched it were captivated to the point that my perception just dilated time itself. That, combined with the fact that the movie amalgamates reality and animation, just made sense for me to like it as much as I did. Truth be told, I had yet to decide that I was going to be a writer, but still, this work was probably subconsciously quite important.
The Pagemaster is not only about the endless possibilities that one might find within the realms of books, but it is also about growing. It depicts both a fantastic journey as well as an allegorical one meant to face one’s fears. The minute nuances and the way the main character faces his circumstance construct the moral of the movie: bravery is inside us and it is by facing our adversities with the help of those around us, as well as with a healthy dose of self-confidence, that we as humans are able to grow and become better. It might not seem as an excessively compelling message for adults, but I do believe that it is an important one for the eyes and mind of a child.
I would give this movie a 7 out of 10 “look to the books”.