Land That ‘Fish!’

Pretty much all I did on my vacation was watch movies and read (you can see what I read over here) which explains the uniformity of posting lately. One more time, though..

See Big Fish. Lovely film. Especially if you’re one of those new fangled “sensitive guys.” I’ve been told I am and since I cry a lot and didn’t know Brett Favre still played for the Packers when someone asked last week, I’m inclined to agree.

Basically the plot is an excuse for a series of flashbacks as a dying father (Albert Finney) tells his son the stories of his life for the 9 millionth time. They’re probably flagrantly untrue but director Tim Burton and novelist Daniel Wallace (it’s based on his book) argue that life if you don’t augment it with your fantasies and dreams is a) dull and b) pretty hard to remember. By telling stories, we light up our lives from the inside, leaving the tales behind when we go and since animals can’t embellish in this way, relish in our gifts as human beings.

Big Fish is mostly a story about men, how men tell stories to achieve our own immortality because we can’t bear children. I probably appreciated it most on this level. After sitting through fistfuls of movies this past few years where relationships between women are seen as empowering and life affirming (Divine Screts of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, Waiting to Exhale and just now, Calendar Girls) and male relationships are seen as junvenile foolishness (Old School, The Brothers), it’s more thn refreshing to see a movie where the nature of men is taken seriously and not assumed to be killing time until the next kegger.

This is an improtant film for Tim Burton. I’ve never been much of a fan since I think his amazing visual eye is often a stand-in for concise storytelling and memorable characters (Ed Wood was an exception but between it and Fish stands the barren set pieces known as Mars Attacks, Sleepy Hollow and Planet of the Apes). Here he has an idea at work, something to say besides “isn’t this neat?” And since Big Fish is very much about what happens to our memories after we die, its only the kind of film Burton, the eternal boy fancier of cimena could make as a middle-aged man. His maturing is overdue and more than welcome by me. Although rumor has it, his next film is a remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory so we’ll see how long that lasts.

• Category: Cinematically Speaking...