My Favorite Film

So earlier in the year I remember seeing a lot of "My Favorite Film" posts on this blog, and it got me thinking about some of my favorite movies. My taste in films is all over the place and I often find myself liking films that others find either over the top or boring. Overall what I look for in films is to experience something new, to feel something that wouldn't come naturally to me in the real world. One director that has impressed me time and time again is Tim Burton. Burton has taken a lot of heat over the years for his creative choices, but to this day I cannot name a Burton film, aside from maybe Alice in Wonderland, that I did not thoroughly enjoy. So without further adieu here is a mini breakdown of one of my favorite movies of all time:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I watched this movie four times in the theater when it came out. I even went to my town's local video rental store and begged them to let me have the official movie poster that they had hanging in their front window. This movie was successful for so many reasons but in the interest of not further outing myself as a weirdo allow be to begin my analysis with:

THE SETS

I mean just look at those bad boys. Each set is so unique and vivid and works perfectly to stimulate and emotional response from the audience. Burton gets a lot of heat for starting his movies off gray, british and bland, but that's only so he can make the introduction of color that much more significant.

The Music

So once the movie begins to kick off and we've established that Charlie Bucket and his family are literally in the brink of poverty we begin to understand the real stakes of this factory tour. All the music in this movie thus far has been mostly grand, emotional, and mystical. Everything feels so bleak and hopeless and then once the factory doors finally open we're greeted with this.

It's sugary ridiculousness borders on the psychotic. It's a perfect way of showing how distant Wonka's psyche is from the poverty and hardships that surround him. It also serves as a way of presenting his egomania to the children of the parents who are about to willingly allow a mad man escort their children around a chocolate factory.

Shot Composition

All about that symmetry. I'm gonna cap off my review here but let me just say that what I love most about Burton is that he seems like he cares deeply about the films he makes. Even after watching this movie about a bazillion times I still find myself catching little details that make the whole experience enjoyable again. I can honestly say that I think this film couldn't have been pulled off by any current mainstream director quite as well.