After viewing Moonrise Kingdom, it makes total sense why Wes Anderson’s films are known as “dollhouses.” Everything about the characters are artificial just like dolls. The characters are two-dimensional with their quick talking banter and mostly monotone voices. It is sort of up to the viewers imagination to make the character their own similar to how we have to give voices and our own behavior to dolls. Also, the houses and physical structures themselves look like dollhouses. Most of the houses were square-shaped and there are no doors on the rooms. Each of the rooms had openings that made it easy to see what was going on in each of the rooms, just like a dollhouse. Also the men and women looked similar to their respective gender with not much creativity or variations to them. However, Sam was the only one that had glasses out of all the boys. It seems that the rest of his Boy Scout troop was the background and he was the main doll. In many scenes throughout the scene, he is wearing a vastly different color than the rest of the troop. In one scene he is wearing plaid while the others are wearing white shirts making the viewer draw its attention to him.
One of the motifs or imagery that is displayed throughout the film is the idea of sight. Susie, uses binoculars to get a clearer picture of what’s going on in her surroundings. She uses it to see Sam from far away when they are meeting up. The binoculars help Susie narrow her environment and line of sight. Sam wears glasses obviously to help his eyesight and it helps make his own life clear.
Another motif or imagery displayed is the lighthouse that was displayed throughout the film. The lighthouse was the sign that a storm was coming every time the town messenger came in to speak and explain to the audience what was going on in the film. Lighthouses are used to help boats find the light and it helped Susie and Sam in the end during their own storm. Also, it’s important to note that the final scene when Bruce Willis’ character and Susie and Sam were on the lighthouse at the end of the movie at the climax of the movie. The lighthouse was used to show the audience that a big scene was coming up and it was used as foreshadowing. At the beginning of the movie, the messenger told the audience that a storm was coming in three days and right behind him was the lighthouse. During the scenes that occurred at night, there was always a flash of light, representing the lighthouse too.
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