Friday, August 3, 2018

Corpse Bride – Film Review

  Corpse Bride – (Tim Burton & Mike Johnson, 2005) is a fantasy drama about two individuals who accidently get together which is the journey of the film. to story is written by one of the director, Tim Burton and Carlos Grangel. This film is considered British American for the language used and is a stop motion film. Like the initial essence of animation films like Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, this film is also musical for the application of during the film. The purpose of this review is to analyze the film mostly from the German Expressionism aspects.

  German Expressionism refers to internal emotions being expressed in the form of film and arts. This film technique initiated in Germany from 1919 onwards. The expressionist movement of modern art is about self-analysis, madness, primitive and sexual savagery. Expressionism in films is mostly done in terms of the technicalities like camera angles, lightings and the presentation of characters and their movements in the film. Besides that, the set design and chiaroscuro lighting is emphasized in this form of art. Filmmakers in Germany back in early 19th century brought the form of art and filmmaking values when they migrated to USA. In terms of Corpse Bride, the melodrama approach of songs being added simply explains that self-reflection or self-analysis is applied in the film values. For example, during the Piano duet song, it is the purest form of creativity because no lyrics or dialogues were used to engage the emotions between the characters and audiences.  At the same time, dimmed lighting used when Emily has her realization sitting alone simply allows audiences to understand her lonely feeling and indulge more to her realization. Since this film is a form of dark art, the visuals and setting had to be mostly with dark techniques like, dimmed lighting, black attire and setting of background following the theme and the directors has executed the technique well throughout the film. For example, the dimmed lighting scenes, and the scenes mostly taking place at night. For example, Emily gets married to Victor, Victoria trying to escape from her room balcony and many more. In conjunction to that, the setting is mostly dark, for example, when Victor and Victoria first meet and the place, Victoria’s home being dark most of the time. The setting allows audiences to feel more of the character, which is applied in the film, for example, Emily’s characteristics could be felt more with the ambiance of her place of living. Finally, the expression of sexual savagery which is portrayed using Emily’s exposing attire. These techniques does not only allow the presenter to express their feelings and emotions but it allows the audiences to perceive their presentations precisely.
     
   Corpse bride basically is about a guy, Victor who is arranged to get married by his parents who he doesn’t meet. Then, during the wedding, he fails to say his vows leading the marriage to failure. Of the disappointment, he goes to into the woods to practice his vows and accidently put the wedding ring into a corpse finger, thinking that it is a branch of tree. That act allows, the corpse, Emily to come alive and take Victor as her husband. Victor tries his best to get the knot off as he is in love with Victoria, his fiancé. With all his attempt going to failure, he is left with no choice but to accept Emily as his wife after witnessing her soft side. Emily somehow makes a twist in the end which saves all parties and allowing her to solve her vengeance against her former fiancé Lord Barkis, a gold digger.

     This film is considered an unnatural horror for the elements of zombie. Furthermore, the disturbing scene of body parts being dislocated and moving around surreally like eye ball falling is considered unnatural. Moreover, the dialogue of worm represents Emily’s thoughts in her mind. For example, the worm saying I was inside your ears when Emily sits alone and thinks about her acts towards Victor and realizes her faults truly defines good symbolization in the film. Accordingly, a 3 act structure is used in terms of the plot. The film begins with Victor’s journey of wanting to get married to Victoria. Then, the conflict starts when vows are not said well and him getting married to a dead corpse, Emily who revives into a new bride. Then the resolving act of the film, also known as the ending in the 3 act structure, where Emily realizes her fault, saves Victor from Lord Barkis and gets Victor married to Victoria while gets her vengeance against Lord Baskis.
      For the final words of this review, the film is a good 3 way romantic film. The scriptwriter and directors have done a great job in presenting the film using techniques of German filmmakers like Robert Weine and Fritz Lang. some subtle symbolization technique used to express their emotions to the audiences were well executed by the modern filmmakers. For filmmakers to apply German expressionism in an animation, being considered to be fresh in the cinema industry isn’t a simple task and has been wisely done.

References ;
(Roger Ebert, 2005)  TIM BURTON'S CORPSE BRIDE. Retrieved from; https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tim-burtons-corpse-bride-2005

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