how to embellish and tell a fulfilled life through the prism of the imaginary...

Rating: 8/10 (23 September 2006)

In his life, Will Bloom has grown up with his father's extravagant stories with which he could never separate the parts of reality and imaginary. One more zany story featuring a big fish led him to a feud with him and a break up which lasted three years. He comes back at his bedside for his father is sorely ill. For their last intimate moments, Will wants to know better his father's real identity behind these stories with multiple colorful characters evolving in a crop of various scenery.
Before "Big Fish", Tim Burton had signed two faultless films featuring a main character called Edward: "Edward Scissorhands" (1990) and "Ed Wood" (1994). These offbeat characters remodeled life their own way and gave it a vision steeped in naivety and optimism. By pruning trees and hedges to amount to geometrical and human forms, the former gave a new face to the little town in which he lived, let's admit it not for very long. With an unshakable enthusiasm, Ed Wood put all his naive ideas in two-bit but charming films. Edward Bloom is the worthy heir of these two protagonists. Thanks to his art of storytelling and the power of his imagination, his wondrous stories make the audience travel and make it believe in a better future too. The film reminded me a little of "Forrest Gump" (1994) because these two works showcase two naive main characters who have little chance to get a fulfilled life and however they achieved this feat. The major difference lies in the fact that in "Big Fish" Burton never prattles stupidly. Anyway, here his own style reaches its climax. An unlikely mix of strange, eccentric and fantastic with the meetings of mundane characters and monsters. The filmmaker keeps tenderness for them either it is the big nice giant or this apparently arrogant ringmaster acted by Danny De Vito who turns into a werewolf at night. I remember having watched an interview with Tim Burton one day in which he said that monsters or monster-like characters were bad because they were often sad and lonely. Such is the case here and that's why the filmmaker keeps tenderness for them.
However, the Burton insiders will have surely noticed that the filmmaker virtually didn't include his usual parts of grim and grisly in this chain of tales or they are subdued at best. This helps to better propagate this sensation of innocence and optimism and also to awake in us our children spirits. Because cinema is basically this: the telling of a story and "Big Fish" is this and more. It or rather Edward's mind shelters a thousand tales for everyone. Then, in spite of this innocent vibe which suffuses the whole film, it also keeps a certain grave tonality. Before he started to write and shoot his film, Tim Burton lost his father and became a father! That's why, emotion can be felt in the scenes between Edward and his son. And there could also be this question: why does Edward present himself in the company of fanciful people in different landscapes? Why can't he separate the "embellished" from the reality? Is it because he has a very vivid imagination? Does he want to go beyond the simple representation of an exemplary life? These question will go unanswered and the frontier between the real and the imaginary is very blurred.
For his 2003 vintage, Tim Burton gathered a stellar cast. Apart from prime performances from Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor, virtually every other minor actor has palpable presence on the screen. I would grant a mention to Steve Buscemi and I dig the scene in which he attacks the bank.
Tim Burton completely transcended what seemed to be on the paper a corny subject on a stylish, whimsical treatment. It's a feast for the eyes and the mind. "Big Fish" eclipses the uneven "Planet of the Apes" (2001) because we found back the real Burton. He once confessed that he had never been an expert at storytelling but when he hires Albert Finney to produce a thousand of them, he unveils some of his unsuspected gifts.