“Attacked by Christmas toys?
That's strange, that's the second toy complaint we've had.”
I watched this on Christmas Eve
and it’s now 20th January. Still, better late than never, eh? After
all, it’s not as though people are sick and tired of all things Christmas at
this time of year, right?
I now fully realise how culturally
impoverished I was not to have seen this gothic, glorious little jewel of a
stop motion animated musical before now. The first of the songs, I learn,
eventually found its way into Marilyn Manson’s set list, while Henry Selick’s
stop motion animation is the best since Ray Harryhausen. The art is not yet
dead. And yes, I know, it’s yet another musical. I seem to be losing my
credentials as someone who doesn’t like them.
This is a Henry Selick film; he
directs and does the stop motion animation. Yes, Tim Burton supplied the
storyline, but it’s not the storyline that makes this film so extraordinary. It
isn’t a Tim Burton film, however close it may be to his sort of aesthetic.
The whole concept is completely mad,
of course, and bizarrely abstract. Halloween and Christmas are both towns, naturally,
with appropriately weird inhabitants, and Halloween decides that it’s going to
do Christmas instead, with unfortunate results. That’s it. But around all this
we get set pieces and visual treats galore, making this short film a piece of
Christmas Eve perfection.
All the characters look great.
There’s Jack, of course, but I particularly like Sally, created out of cadavers
by the superbly named Dr Finkelstein. Best of all, though, is Oogie Woogie. He’s
the coolest, the best singer, and made out of insects. What’s not to like?
So, yeah, good film. The next
review might not be so gushing. It certainly won’t be so much of a wait…!
I have to admit I am one of those people who thinks the film to be somewhat overrated, once you get over past the visual effects and stop motion.
ReplyDeletePersonally I have two huge problems with the movie. The first one is obviously that all characters outside of Jack are just incredible bland (and that includes Sally). And even Jack proves himself a complex character when everyone else doesn't understand the concept of Christmas but he goes ahead with his plan anyway. I also have some issues with the romance between Jack and Sally, especially because her romance with Jack isn’t that developed; she only intersects with the main plot because she's long-since loved Jack from afar, though in the absence of almost literally any interaction with Jack, I can't say why. He barely knows who she is, and her character's actual function in the story, however, is to be a frowny, moralizing scold about every last fun thing that Jack ever does, and so without even a reason for her to respect him, the obsession that persists in spite of this feels less romantic than like a pathetic crush.