The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 299 Days to go: 289
Movie #74: The Corpse Bride
Tim Burton has sort of cornered the market on this particular kind of digital claymation horror flick, and kind of as a general rule you expect to see (or hear) his life partner Helena Bonham Carter and long-time friend and collaborator Johnny Depp in every one of them. The thing is, though, I’d totally forgotten they were in this one and I somehow missed the opening credits until it got to Emily Watson so I watched the whole thing without noticing Depp and Bonham Carter were the voices of Victor and Emily (with the other Emily, Watson, actually voicing Victoria).
Danny Elfman, in addition to providing his usual trippy score, writes a bunch of catchy songs as well. You really have to hand it to Tim Burton — he know what works for him and he continues to crank that sort of thing out, working with the same people, year after year. And yet he still manages to create new and interesting stories.
The Corpse Bride is definitely my favorite of the animated Burton films. It plays with ideas of obligation versus desire, and love versus longing. Lines are crossed between the land of the living and the world of the dead when Victor accidentally slips his wedding band on the petrified zombie finger of Emily, the corpse bride, reaching up from under the ground beneath a tree. The use of color to differentiate these planes of existence is excellent and plays against expectations, as Victor and Victoria’s lives are composed of pale and pasty shades of gray and sepia, whereas the underworld is all bright colors and unnatural complexions. It’s beautiful and interesting to look at.
The most fascinating part of The Corpse Bride, however, is how it empowers its young women. Victor is a nervous man, and while he definitely finds strength through the course of the film and proves to be a stand-up guy, Victoria and Emily are actually the heroes. Victoria, though she is foiled and forced to marry Lord Barkis (Richard E. Grant), is the only one to fight for Victor and try to save him from the underworld. And Emily, who has been wallowing in the heartbreak of her lost love (and murder most foul), learns to be strong on her own. She doesn’t need a man to be happy, and she releases Victor to be with his true love Victoria. However, she neither goes back to her wallowing, nor does she allow herself to be run over by the villain. She stands up to him, takes back her life (or death, as it were) and returns to the underworld in a flutter of magical butterflies. It’s a vision of a woman being set free from the things that can hold them back, and I’m all for that.
Viable Option 