Category: cinema reviews

…my true love gave to me: UNCHANGEABLE NATURE?

“What have I done? What have I done? How could I be so blind? All is lost, where was I? Spoiled all… spoiled all; everything’s gone all wrong.”

Edward Scissorhands can’t adapt to sunny suburbia and is exiled to his grey castle. Catwoman can’t reconcile her issues and live happily every after in Batman Returns (and the sewer-raised circus freak Penguin just doesn’t fit in the world above either, let alone Keaton’s tormented Bruce Wayne). Sweeney Todd’s inflexible darkness inevitably consumes everything he loves, and himself. A familiar theme in several of Tim Burton’s films seems to be: you cannot change who you are. It’s no wonder he’s aiming next at the melancholy Dark Shadows.

…my true love gave to me: SYNCRETIZATION

“Making Christmas, making Christmas, Is so fine… It’s ours this time!”

Imagine you’ve been languishing in a grey world of despair since you can remember. Suddenly, your world is turned upside down, your heart filled with a joy it’s never known before! You start trying to tell everyone you know – you can’t help yourself, you’re so exhilarated! – but all you get are confused looks or misunderstanding. They haven’t seen it or felt it. You do your best to itemize, bullet-point, and break it down but you find there is a mystery and wonder to it that ultimately transcends rationale. You’re suddenly inspired: emulate it! That will show the world.

But then… but then it all goes so terribly wrong.

…my true love gave to me: SYSTEMATICS?

“I’ve read these Christmas books so many times… I know the stories and I know the rhymes. I know the Christmas carols all by heart, My skull’s so full, it’s tearing me apart! As often as I’ve read them, something’s wrong… So hard to put my bony finger on…”

Jack Skellington can’t see the forest for the Christmas trees. We’ve been unwrapping the narrative tapestry of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, and our fourth day finds Jack trying to unravel the nature of Christmas. He’s trying to become the master of it, rather than simply receiving it as the wondrous gift that it is. His intentions may not be entirely wrong – he wants to explain and share it with others – but he finds applying the scientific method falls short of full explanation.

…my true love gave to me: EVANGELISM!

“But you must believe when I tell you this, It’s as real as my skull and it DOES exist!”

Peeling back the skin to see the narrative bone structure of The Nightmare Before Christmas and it’s skeletal character, Jack, our third narrative beat finds the once-sorrowful Pumpkin King speeding back to Halloweentown after his life-changing experience with Christmas. He’s just had his nightmarish world spun topsy turvy with a divine revelation of a happy, colorful land beyond his own, a rejuvenation that fills his heart and warms his bones with a fresh sense of living that he’s excited to share. Articulation of that newfound bliss, however, proves more difficult than our skinny protagonist anticipated.

…my true love gave to me: DISCOVERY!

What’s this? What’s this? There’s something very wrong
What’s this? There’s people singing songs

As we continue unwrapping The Nightmare before Christmas, we find a hearty recipe for sad Jack Skellington. Mix one part aimless wandering, a dash of sehnsucht wondering, stir with a skeleton-snatching snow flurry and you’ve got the ingredients for Jack’s journey through a doorway to a world of light and laughter, peace and love. Transported from the grey, mundane streets and cemeteries of Halloweentown, the story’s unsatisfied protagonist finds himself in a miraculous and life-altering change of address. Jack sings ecstatically:

…my true love gave to me: DISCONTENT?

“Oh, somewhere deep inside of these bones
An emptiness began to grow
There’s something out there, far from my home
A longing that I’ve never known…”

Jack Skellington is sad. So sad. In The Nightmare Before Christmas, our skeletal main character is found depressed and lamenting, and why wouldn’t he be? He’s only… uh… the best he is at what he does, loved by all his peers and co-workers, adored by patchwork women, and almost everybody recognizes him as the guy in charge. Wait a minute: he’s the Pumpkin KING, he’s a rock star, he’s the king of the world, head-liner at what seems to have been their very best Halloween ever: so what’s wrong with this picture?

‘Twas a long time ago, longer now than it seems in a place perhaps you’ve seen in your dreams. For the story you’re about to be told began with the holiday worlds of auld. Now you’ve probably wondered where holidays come from. If you haven’t I’d say it’s time you begun…

In addition to one of the endless versions of A Christmas Carol, and endless showings of A Christmas Story, a tradition I and many other freaks and geeks (and otherwise normal people) keep each year is watching Disney’s enchantingly odd story, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. This quirky tale of Halloween characters trying to take over the Yuletide has built up quite a following since it first sang out in 1993, with everything from music boxes to pajamas to Jack Skellington action figures rolling out each year as decorations and presents, sparking that now-frequent debate: is this a Halloween or a Christmas movie?

(hint: the answer is in the title).