Sunday, 3:30pm, ITV2
Corpse Bride (2005), Tim Burton’s whimsical gothic fairy tale, is a marriage of the macabre and the heartwarming, much like if the Brothers Grimm crashed a wedding with The Nightmare Before Christmas. Set in a fog-drenched Victorian village that looks like it could border Sleepy Hollow, this stop-motion gem follows the awkward but well-meaning Victor Van Dort (voiced by Johnny Depp), who accidentally finds himself betrothed to Emily, the titular Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter). In classic Burton fashion, the Land of the Living is a dreary, grey space of stiff upper lips, while the underworld is bursting with color and jazzy undead revelers, making it a bizarrely upbeat place to be dead.
Burton’s direction makes the film feel like a fever dream fueled by black tea and Edward Gorey illustrations. But no mention of Corpse Bride would be complete without praising the score by Danny Elfman, Burton’s musical partner-in-crime. Elfman’s compositions are haunting yet playful, like a haunted circus troupe tuning up their instruments. His use of a sweeping orchestral palette, sprinkled with accordion and piano motifs, brings a lyrical quality to the underworld scenes. Highlights like “The Piano Duet” between Victor and Emily are eerily touching, while “Remains of the Day,” a bouncy cabaret number sung by Elfman himself as the jazz-loving skeleton Bonejangles, proves that even the dead need a good swing tune.
For those of us who still find ourselves haunted by Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts(1963), Corpse Bride is a loving homage to the hand-crafted artistry of the past, with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe thrown in for good measure. The film blends pathos with playful darkness, much like the best of Burton's early work. It’s a film where love transcends death, but not before we’ve had a lively, musical detour through the graveyard.
- Noel Chambers