That Extraordinary World Felt So... Ordinary
There are a few things worth praising in The Corpse Bride. Like making both women good choices for the hero: interesting. There are also many things worth questioning in the film: the songs were boring. The hero makes a couple of big decisions out of nowhere. The movie's weirdly humourless (especially for Burton). And the whole thing feels like an underdeveloped and less interesting rehash The Nightmare Before Christmas (right down to the ghosty dog).
But maybe my biggest complaint is that The Corpse Bride's "extraordinary world" --the land of the dead, and the corpse bride's home-- is so blah.
It's a poorly defined "new world" in that we never understand how its rules work. How does the whole death thing work in this world? What does it take to enter or exit this land? Are these people corporeal? Both prancing around the land of the dead, while also resting in their graves? What is the movie bringing to the idea of the afterlife that is new, or at least magical or interesting?
It's also a world that is populated by a whole lot of non-characters-- some of whom are skeletons, others just blue in the face. Not a single one of these dead characters has a distinct personality or is interesting in any way. The most fully fleshed-out characters in the land of the dead are a black widow spider and a maggot (neither of whom, presumably, is dead).
Why is all this a problem? Why do I ask so much from the land of the dead? Because a) the movie wasted a potentially fascinating/magical environment, and b) if I've seen much more interesting and unique afterlives in other films --Defending Your Life, What Dreams May Come, Burton's own Beetlejuice-- then as a viewer I can't help but compare them and Bride will inevitably come up short.
So, the lessons: no wasting stuff. And have a sense of what people come in with-- will they expect a new take on an old concept/environment and be disappointed if they don't get it?
All you folks working on angel/devil/vampire specs, I'm talking to you.
There are a few things worth praising in The Corpse Bride. Like making both women good choices for the hero: interesting. There are also many things worth questioning in the film: the songs were boring. The hero makes a couple of big decisions out of nowhere. The movie's weirdly humourless (especially for Burton). And the whole thing feels like an underdeveloped and less interesting rehash The Nightmare Before Christmas (right down to the ghosty dog).
But maybe my biggest complaint is that The Corpse Bride's "extraordinary world" --the land of the dead, and the corpse bride's home-- is so blah.
It's a poorly defined "new world" in that we never understand how its rules work. How does the whole death thing work in this world? What does it take to enter or exit this land? Are these people corporeal? Both prancing around the land of the dead, while also resting in their graves? What is the movie bringing to the idea of the afterlife that is new, or at least magical or interesting?
It's also a world that is populated by a whole lot of non-characters-- some of whom are skeletons, others just blue in the face. Not a single one of these dead characters has a distinct personality or is interesting in any way. The most fully fleshed-out characters in the land of the dead are a black widow spider and a maggot (neither of whom, presumably, is dead).
Why is all this a problem? Why do I ask so much from the land of the dead? Because a) the movie wasted a potentially fascinating/magical environment, and b) if I've seen much more interesting and unique afterlives in other films --Defending Your Life, What Dreams May Come, Burton's own Beetlejuice-- then as a viewer I can't help but compare them and Bride will inevitably come up short.
So, the lessons: no wasting stuff. And have a sense of what people come in with-- will they expect a new take on an old concept/environment and be disappointed if they don't get it?
All you folks working on angel/devil/vampire specs, I'm talking to you.
posted by Jennica at 10:00 a.m.
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