SPOILERS -- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I love love love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I don't think I've watched a better-filmed Hollywood production than this, for this year. It is unexpected, as is based on a children book and is slated as a product for mass consumption. I went in the theatre only hoping to be entertained in the mainstream sort of manner, only to get away with much much more than I can ever imagine.

I seriously think they should let Tim Burton direct one of the Harry Potter films. He might do better than Alfonso Cuaron. The man knows all about the dark side of things. *nods*

Onto what I suspect will be a loooong rave about the film. You've been duly warned.

*** SPOILER HEREAFTER ***

I would have been impressed with the film if it only adequately adapted the book on screen. Simple as it may seem, adapting children stories into films is often very tricky business because a book is longer than a film, and it takes careful contemplation for one to decide which parts make it and which parts get cut in such a way that satisfies readers while capturing short attention span of the usual adult movie-goers, and the even shorter attention span of the kids. An example in point would be the third Harry Potter film for which the scripting is really bad.

But I digress. The point is, on top of decent scripting and structuring of the film such that it is entertaining for the mainstream audience, Tim Burton actually managed artistic direction in what most would perceive as a highly commercialised Hollywood product. This is what surprised me the most, in a very goooood way, because the film feels more wholesome due to the way Tim Burton has directed it. No one is left out of this movie experience -- the kids get their shiny things, the adults get the laughs, and the film geeks get their private jokes. It's Tim Burton saying hello to all and shaking all our hands.

Most of the film's achievement lies in the mise-en-scene. I particularly like the touch of German Expressionism and how it enhances the theme of the film -- a critique on rapid industralisation and the subsequent dehumanisation of people, leading to issues of consumerism and materialism. In a streak of irony, Tim Burton reversed the application of the style of German Expressionism. Instead of donning the undesirable (dehumanisation) with the cloak of grotesque representation -- as is often seen in earlier Expressionistic films -- Tim Burton chose to present the normal people (Charlie and his family) in the grotesque, with their distorted house that is lacking in colours, and make them appear abnormal in the midst of a facade of normality of highly commericalised lives. It forms a strong ironic juxtaposition of happy, fulfilled people leading a poor life without colours except that that comes from within them, against those who lead a rich colourful (literally) life but have nothing within them at all. In short, the status of the normal and the abnormal is deliberated switched to create a displacement that is the foundation for the satire.

The use of colours is beautifully executed, especially when the gloomy greys suddenly opens up to a land of technicolours that heightens the sense of the fantasy, using colours to highlight things that are not quite real, and leads one to question if colours, and by extension, beautiful things (materialism), naturally means/represents happiness and fulfilled lives.

The make-up is also adapted to such an end. All the other three children and their parents look like plastic dolls with super big blinky eyes and golden smooth foundation. Only Charlie and his family look like normal people.

The sense of how much commericalism has taken over the world is heightened with the use of overwhelmingly big and tall buildings (a feature of German Expressionism too!), and presenting things in strongly symmetrical ways. You literally feel a line cut down the middle of the screen in many instances. Such has the effect of creating a setting that is a little too neat and organised, prompting a feeling of artificiality and thus uneasiness on the audience's part. Throw in the dancing little hobbits, you get what Bing refers to as Satanic and scary.

And to make things even scarier, the Oompa Loompas seem to be within everyone of us, in varying degree. The synchronised dancing and singing? Well, that's just mocking us all who are conformists and who are in the rat race. Particularly true for Singaporeans who are produced via the factory line that is the education system, topped with a good dose of National Education, and moulded into useful parts essential for the smooth running of the country's economy. If Singapore's economy is the chocolate factory, we are the oh-so-scary-but-still-cute and very obedient Oompa Loompas.

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But what I love best about the film lies not in the artistic direction, but the tongue-firmly-lodged-in-cheek manner in which Burton pays homage to two of the greatest directors -- Kubrick and Hitchcock.

The part about the television-transportor had me in stitches. One reason, I suspect, is because no one -- absolutely no one -- would expect to find a homage session in what was supposed to be cheap entertainment. So you can imagine how amused I was to see the ape-jumping-around-the-monolith-scene of famed 2001 inside Wonka's TV. And when Burton had the chocolate bar replaced the monolith -- THAT was priceless. Not only because it was creative, but also mind-boggling how it actually managed to tie in with the whole consumer culture theme, mocking how Man are now worshipping Wonka's chocolate (representative of consumerism) in place of the omnipotence. The inclusion of Psycho was all in good fun (screenshots plus original soundtrack somemore!), I suppose, and you all probably already know my taste for the wacky. I was so entertained and tortured at the same time 'cos laughter was bursting out of me and no one else was laughing, and so I tried my darnest to not laugh like a maniac while mentally forgiving Tim Burton for Big Fish.

The only thing that I don't like about the film is really petty nitpicking -- Charlie referring to sweets as candies in a British accent. Probably won't bother most people, but I felt weird hearing that. Only American kids call those things candies.

That said, I sincerely hope that this film will get nominated for an Oscar, if not for the artistic direction, then at the very least, for the props. In contemporary times, I don't think we often see how props work so intricately with the plot and thematic concerns.