the lights, the lights!

Rating: Null/10 (19 March 2004)

Well, yeah, the lights. Everybody should watch this movie, at the very least to have a look at the atmosphere and at the gothic, phantasmagorical and yet oddly bright light set around. Useless to say, it's a Tim Burton film, therefore this fact should not be too surprising, but still...(well, he's lucky, the progress of technique helps him out, that's quite clear). I love Burton's style. Maybe his way of telling stories is not very orthodox, in fact the plot of "Sleepy Hollow" is not always clear, but the magic is there anyway. Also, it is funny that he is classified as a horror film maker, when in fact it would be quite difficult to get creeps from any of his films. Everything in this tale is unbelievable, from the begining to its very end, and I mean it: nothing fits at all, it dances between a comedy and an umbalanced terror film and the music is too romantic to thrill anyone. But that's one of the nice points: why should it fit anyway? It is alright like that. Burton's jokes are funny, and, which is even better, are intellingent, shinny and beautiful. To look at the images is like going through a Friedrich's painture. It also has something of the old, forsaken beauty of Murnau. The actors look great in this big confusing weirdness. Well, not as if Depp and Ricci were bad actors! but they really do their job here; specially Ricci with her strange and slightly malicious innocent look is able to confuse the viewer until the end...which I'm not gonna tell you, basically because it is quite obvious. And you'll find Christopher Lee and Lise Marie around...you just have to seek for them. Jewels within jewels. Oh, and another note...why is the blood so red? This I never understood. It annoyed me a bit: it definetly didn't fit with the general setting. But, nobody is perfect I guess.