Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) and the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter) eye each other. - CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
THE WORD 'fabulous' begs to be used again and again and yet again in an attempt to describe Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride. It is a hilarious, imaginative and downright fantastic piece of animation from beginning to end.
For maybe a decade now, animated film has been shaking off the myth that it is solely for children. While the art form is conducive to grappling with the shifting imaginations of children, animation is truly capable of much more. It allows for another kind of expression, for the ability to play more loosely with symbolism, and The Corpse Bride is the beautiful fruition of that possibility.
The film is directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson, with the screenplay written by John August and Pamela Pettler. The Corpse Bride features the voices of Johnny Depp as Victor Van Dort, Helena Bonham Carter as the Corpse Bride and Emily Watson as Victoria Everglot.
WAITING FOR TRUE LOVE
The story is essentially a ménage-a-trois, except that one of its members happens to be from the netherworld. Having lost her life and her love at the same time, The Corpse Bride has been waiting for true love and is quite ecstatic to find it when a very nervous Victor Van Dort accidentally proposes to her one night in the woods. This corpse does make a - beautiful blushing bride - for a corpse, that is - and though she is dead, her story is one of heartbreak. The story plays with the idea of 'till death do us part'.
The Corpse Bride is easy to love at first sight because the artwork is visually arresting and the characters are fabulously created. In a classic case of turning function into personality, one can easily tell the personalities because they look the part in what appears to be a very Dickensian approach to characterisation.
So Emile, the Everglot's butler, has a perfectly upturned nose that is so beautifully beak-like it would make a bird envious, while the town crier is shaped like a bell.
Additionally, the music is fantastic and one should not be surprised to walk out of the theatre with a song or two still playing along in one's head. The music bears the stamp of the leg-kicking show tunes of yore and the songs are wonderfully witty, as is the rest of the script.
Of course, the characters are beautifully voiced and it is easy to make connections with the wide-eyed lovers - all three of them - or laugh at the other characters, whether it be the snobbish Everglots or the pretentious Van Dorts, and of course the numerous characters from the nether world.
It is a wonderful depiction of the idea that romance is not dead, or maybe that death cannot stop romance.
The Corpse Bride is hauntingly beautiful. It is hilarious. It is absolutely fabulous. It has all the essentials of life, love, music, laughter and well, death.
