It's a weird story, this time helmed by a weird director, but it somehow manages to work much more smoothly and -- dare I say it? -- beautifully than expected. From what I know of the original Disney animated film (which, admittedly, is not much as I've never seen it), this film at once remakes and expands. The first half of this new version is the remake, the second half is where Tim Burton and writer Ehren Kruger imagine a new, updated, and much more interesting story.
Essentially, Dumbo is born in circus captivity (thankfully, this time, not delivered by storks) and deemed useless as a result of his deformity: unusually large ears. It's hard to imagine so many people in the circus of freaks and in the general public who would laugh so cruelly at the adorable little guy, brought gorgeously to visual life here. But that's more a question of the story than of this film. When Dumbo's mother Jumbo is sold after attempting to protect her son, Dumbo learns with the help of his mousy little human friends (who take the place of his cartoon mouse companion) that he can fly. He uses his newfound ability to gain fame, new opportunities, and hope to find his mother again.
Leave it to Tim Burton to highlight the theme of odd uniqueness, of physical difference, and stretch it out ad nauseam. Dumbo's caretaker Holt, played by Colin Farrell, returns home after WWII with only one arm, reuniting with his two children in tearful remembrance of his wife and their mother who recently passed away. He soon discovers that he cannot perform, as the circus has sold his prized horse; he is instead given the job of tending to the new elephant -- apparently a demeaning task for the gentle and handsome man -- with the brutal other caretaker. His children are similarly odd, especially the older girl who wants to be a scientist. (ugh. Tim Burton isn't known for featuring diverse character tropes.)
Yes, it's all really weird, especially when Danny DeVito's ringmaster gets into full swing. Fortunately, though, he's not the villain of this film. After Dumbo's power of flight manifests, DeVito's circus is sold to Michael Keaton's all-but-mustache-twirling CEO of Dreamland, a sort of awkward parody of Disneyland that feels like a bizarre meta-commentary from a Disney movie about Disney. This is where things get really interesting. Issues of capitalism never really coalesce into an argument, but rather flavor the suddenly grayscape environment with trippy, decadent visuals. Keaton's character seems a blatant critique of Walt Disney, and I'm still not sure how, or why, or what it means.
Kind of like the film as a whole. It falls short of making any statements, or really even justifying its own existence. It's (thank heaven) not a hallucinatory Burton nightmarescape of clowns and magic; rather it's surprisingly, blissfully, grounded. While the people may not act quite normal and the excesses far from realistic, it allows you time to appreciate the subtle joys and sly critiques utterly absent from the (again, as I remember) more bombastic, fantastic, and kind of racist original. Then again, I wished more than once for more of an aesthetic purpose to this exercise, beyond seeing Colin Farrell getting all dewey-eyed, fawning over Eva Green.
While it doesn't rise to the magnificent events of more recent Disney remakes, it certainly works better than Cinderella, and we can all be grateful for that.
P.S. -- I found myself more than once wondering the rating of this film. PG! More than once, I wished for PG-13 or even R, just to see what Burton might do. Then again, I'm kind of glad he reigned it all in. But this flick is chock-full of Easter eggs, and some far dirtier than expected. You actually see the mermaid's nipple at one point, in the fabulous Disney tradition of sexual imagery. And, my favorite, when Dreamland comes crashing down, the sign loses its "D", reading "reamland" and suggesting that Keaton's capitalist character just got fucked.
oh my G!
ReplyDeleteso u got it too!!!