Toiling way in not-exactly-obscurity... March 8, 2010

For most of my teenage life, and all of my adult life, Tim Burton has been cinematically toiling away with variations upon the same crew, usually including:

·         Johnny Depp

·         Helena Bonham Carter

·         Danny Elfman

 

There are variations in the line-up, but it’s usually a darkly-themed piece of work, tinged with a certain gothic sensibility (and although many tag this as hot-topic-esque, Tim predates them by far enough to make it starkly clear who inspired whom) – and as my sister so astutely pointed out, he’s usually guiding his cast of characters through a story that is dancing fairly close to “Daddy Issues”. All variations on a theme, Tim Burton has been hacking away, via varying angles, at the same story core and aesthetics, to the point where it’s distilled down to him making the same movie over and over again. And much like KMFDM cranking out the same album (with slight variations) on an annual basis, one day you just know it’s going to turn out perfectly, and you wonder… what will happen then?

 

You’ll notice that I didn’t make a Carrot Top reference. This is because I’m not a fucking idjit.

 

Based upon this image alone, it would really be easy to assume that once again, Tim is pulling Johnny Depp out of his toychest, slathering on ghoulish white makeup, and leading us down the same trail. And I’d pretty much written it off as such, and decided that I’d watch Alice in Wonderland for the novelty 3D value, and an ephemeral wash of “ooh, isn’t it neat what they can do with computer animation these days” across my optic nerves. And I was pretty much solidly wrong.

 

Yes, this is a Tim Burton film, full of dark visuals and his trademark visual panache – But principally, this is a story, not an aesthetic showcase. And where his usual style of painting things askew and damaged is applied, it works as part of the story, not as a discordant aesthetic. And it holds up as a Disney film as well – in that there are many levels of entertainment for all ages to enjoy, and has, at its core, a well delivered message about being true to one’s self, and applying that philosophy to not just life, but living.

 

All of this allows the cast to not end up being upstaged by visual mayhem, and with only a few stumbles, the actors play their roles fairly well. You never really quite find yourself being taken out of the narrative until one gratuitously nouveau-Disney moment near the end just harshly breaks the spell – but it’s over quickly, and its back to the business of telling the story of Alice. For as much as I loathe and despise actually dealing with the hassle of the modern theater-going experience, I had a rare wonderful time.

 

As an aside to Mister Burton: I hear you’re telling the press that you’re “not dark”. This is as uproariously funny as Andrew Eldritch whining that Sisters of Mercy is Not Goth. In the same way that you can’t be taken seriously by claiming to promote family values while picking up one night stands in a government owned vehicle, you can’t try to deny that dark aesthetic of your work and then kick off a movie project about Malificent - Malificent, for fuck's sake!

 

Seriously Tim, you shit bats. You know it. I know it. Count Chocula knows it, while looking distinctly uncomfortable. It's okay.