Maleficent is the first movie I’ve ever seen twice in the cinema. Clearly I like it 1000. I saw it again last night (first time was on Saturday, noted in my previous Maleficent post).

I was very taken by details such as the rustling forest sounds in stereo, different flowers in Aurora’s hairstyles (and in the Moors: lupins, foxgloves, hyacinths, agapanthus…), evolving outfits, Thistletwit giving her wish to baby Aurora while blowing dandelion seeds, and that the younger Maleficent even sports the same over-eyebrow mole as Jolie.

“Don’t listen to him Balthazar, you are classically handsome.” – Maleficent to Balthazar after he is insulted by Stefan.

“A king does not take orders from a winged elf!” – King Henry to Maleficent as they prepare for battle.

“What have you done to my beautiful self?” – Diaval to Maleficent after she first works her magic on him.

Swedish ceiling work

My friend (who has disdain for “popular” movies and rails against the sad and disappointing closing of the Arc Cinema) said his take on the movie was “A triumph for makeup”. He hadn’t seen Sleeping Beauty so I think that contributes to his response.

We went to Palace Electric, which has lots to look at like this ceiling work (above), which sort of has a sky-ocean relationship with the honeycomb tiles underneath. Jen has captured a much nicer angle of the ceiling. It isn’t by an individual artist, but was sourced from a Swedish company.

Other works in the area are listed by the Molonglo Group.

Some Maleficent spoilers from here: I was left with the same questions that I had on my first viewing:

• some confusion about the geography of the Castle/Moors and remote location of Aurora’s hiding “hovel”;
• how did the parents of both Maleficent and Stefan die? (maybe they were the same!);
• how was Stefan able to secret himself into the Moors, when other humans couldn’t (prior to thorniness);
• why didn’t the forest protect Maleficent when Stefan was with her?;
• why Maleficent’s wings couldn’t resist being taken from the Moors but could activate later on;
• why was there an abandoned castle available for Maleficent, what was the story?;
• why the three aunties didn’t morph into fairy form when they wanted during the “best years of their lives”?;
• why the aunties were loyal/scared of the King when they could escape and owed him nothing (e.g. no gratitude for looking after Aurora, but they thought he’d take their heads and did indeed hit Flittle)?;
• why did Maleficent ride Diaval horse when she could have used the earth dragon to get her to the castle more quickly?;
• why Diaval and Aurora weren’t together (or Diaval and “mistress” Maleficent?)?;
• why the carefully constructed iron tunnel was actually quite penetrable (I guess the ironworkers also had to make the net?);
• …and other things I can’t recall.

 “That’s a lovely gift…” Queen Leila to Maleficent as she weaves her spell on Aurora.