Corpse Bride Directed by Mike Johnson, Tim Burton
Cinema Release Date: October 19, 2005
With Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, more
Genre: Animation, Fantasy, Romance
Time: 01h15min Production Year: 2004
The story is that of a wealthy couple newly rich from their trade in fish that tries to establish an alliance between their only son, Victor Van Dort, and the daughter of nobles ruined, Victoria Everglot. Following the misadventures of Victor, who was unable to pronounce his vows before an audience more than disapproving during rehearsal, but falls in love with his bride anyway (good news). While it will be exercised in a wood, he spent the alliance on the part of a root by saying his vows. The innocent roots proved to be Emily, deceased bride so that he comes to marry ...
For this film, Tim Burton, Mike Johnson joins and leaves the field of multicolored The Nightmare Before Christmas Jack to adopt a more somber mood, an aesthetic blue night, fulfilling the basic code of the drama ('missing is rain on the pavement and it is good): the two filmmakers recreate the fabulous scenery and scientifically unlikely to give way to the contrast between the treatment of life and death: life is very foggy and depressing, the characters are from the stuck in the beginning of automatic physical (the time where we make a generic overview of borough, with the two fishmongers who work to reinvent the chain) and social (the rules of propriety, arranged marriage, etc.), while that death is portrayed in a joyous atmosphere, colorful, lively, noisy, where the dead have little restraint, drink, sing, and play much more than the living (hence the old "Now, Why When people go up there are dying to get down here? "). However, the finding is reversed at the end: the late Lord Barkis étripent dead and the living find themselves in love, after crossing moultes tests. Returning to the celebration of life after death than during his stay six feet under Victor.
Speaking of the end, the beginning is quite similar: the butterfly that emerges Victor chained under its glass dome symbolizes Emily, trapped by his vow and sadness (while there, I hear very distinctly my teacher movie scream "We do psychologize not the characters! "): the butterfly release from prison of glass makes the link with the last words of Emily" You've given me my freedom, I give you yours "by turning into a hundred butterflies flying towards the full moon. It also returns to life (the fashionable destination), thence to rave about reincarnation, thorny issue on which I will not venture.
This metamorphosis is a practical solution found by the scenario at a time to complete the film as it begins and to relieve the conscience of the characters and the viewer: Emily leaving the place in Victoria despite his love for Victor, at sacrifice, y ' no more tearing. But no anxiety of guilt for too long, she left for better to revive the same moon that she and Victor had admired when they first set out in the living: it goes up there alone this time, leaving behind her heart that stopped beating and who can always make her suffer.
Incidentally, the noble institution of marriage is under attack from all sides: from marriage to the dead (which there are far better than the living), marriage to Lord Barkis and Victoria looks like a funeral (of Hence this great moment during the wedding meal doleful where no one speaks and the face, Lord Barkis taps his glass and called for silence to make a speech), the ultimate marriage between a living and one dead when circumstances are outlandish situations that are set up with two married in a church looking forward to fight two husbands (one with a fork) in front of an assembly composed of dead and alive and a pastor in his skull ... and of course, arranged marriage, which involved the faces of parents whose physique has been reversed: a little big and rangy and dry Everglot wife in a solid matron plump and chirps and a thin old man in Van Dort: both sets of parents, however, are as despicable as the other one, driven by goals inglorious like to make a name or fill in the empty chest. Both lack of pity and compassion (Mrs. Van Dort respondent without stopping to check his order to stop coughing while it is busy dying), show cynicism and cruelty abhorrent their children (Victoria is sold by a husband to another, after being cloistered). If they are ubiquitous in the beginning they are not in the end, making the marriage of their children a free marriage.
Moreover, we do not see them getting married, just to swear their love before seeing smoke from Emily: the bonds of imprisonment that were supposed to be concreted their marriage are absent and emphasize their love freely.
The theme of money is ever mentioned and is the reason of all marriages in Victoria (except the last) in the end we did not see color, aside from the "dot" of Victor, who is So the fish trade, on signs of diligence, deeply hidden before arriving in Everglot. This leads to question more: in final, wanted the marriage has taken place, so parents win even overshadowed what they want, then we would have liked to see them spend a few vacation days in the hands of the dead : the end is much happier for it seems. Both marriages with Emily Victor and Victoria are forced marriages for one, arranged for another, but it ends with the most anticipated: the world of the living and the dead do not mix well, still living together, end is classic. And there is downright incomprehensible because we have yet put the dose on Emily, more charismatic, more noble than the pale Victoria: everything is done to it seem more real: it was the derision of the tenderness, jealousy, understanding ... all making up a double portrait of naive young virgin still dreaming of Prince Charming (hey it's the first time I place this one) and the mature woman who knows how to take responsibilities.
More importantly, she plays the piano while Victoria not (like say the maggot and black widow), piano very important in the love scenes: it brings together two lovers who do not know at first, and the first vision that Victoria has her promise is that of a talented musician and shy she admires, and also brings together two angry husbands underground playing piano on a coffin-two, forming the touching moment of the "Piano Duet", which incorporates the theme throughout the film (it is not kidding when Danny Elfman at the helm, yet his main song that tells the story of the death of Emily is rather weak enough). These scenes of music are relayed by the humorous moments of the film, between the street crier aware of any more effective than newspaper people.
