Dark Shadows: two thumbs up

 

Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows (2012) reminds me that contained, stock plots and characters can be great. Allowing the proverbial “child in me” to see the wonderment of kitsch, as if it were the first time, and then rip it to shreds, calling its bluff, as if I never had before. 

This is the sort of family film that initiates the child into the the good, the bad, and the confusing of the world:  introducing its characters, themes, and situations in an overture that also sets the seeds for the child’s critical resistance.

This is the sort of family film that stands strong in the face of the hip, current, moment that we live in. Knowingly outdated, it gives its clichés over to audiences and critics (who have deemed it “dated,” “tiresome,” “tedious”) as a punching bag. But if we allow it to get under our skins, those same negative qualities become powerful testaments to the magic of mythic archetypes. Like the protagonist in a Caspar David Freidrich painting (the film makes many a reference to this painter), each time we view the moon, it is as if it is for the first time! Despite the scoffing cynics, who claim, “it’s only the moon.”

This tension between the stale and the fresh, the boring and the sublime, finds its mirror in the plot:

Back in the late 1700s, Depp’s character Barnabus, a small town prince, does not return the  affection of the witch Angelique, so she kills his girlfriend, turns Barn' into a vampire, and has him buried alive by a mob. He's dug out in the 1970s, brought into a world that is humorously foreign to him. He is startled by new technology, new fashion, and new politics (particularly female rights). And everyone else is equally startled by his archaic ways: gothic, exaggerated, Dandyish, old-fashioned but also sexy and stylish.

The Burtonian irony comes from the fact that the 70s itself, with its lava lamps, happenings, and beehive hairdos, seems dated and ludicrous. Everything of the past is morphed into parody through Burton’s eyes. But by now we’re used to Burton’s nostalgic visions. In fact, one feels the film deserves its bad reviews “Burton is merely relying on the same-old formula.”

The film has become the very nostalgic trash Burton seeks to make relevant for the contemporary masses. In fact, it is even lower in mainstream fashionable relevance than the source material it rips from (Dark Shadows: TV soap opera, 1966-1971).

Now it is Burton that needs revamping, redemption, and relevance-boosting. He'll have to outshine his rivals and convince the very young that he is at least relevant enough to be the subject of a parodic homage.

Likewise, in order to redeem himself, Depp’s character, Barnabus must humiliate his only living contemporary, Angelique, the bitch/witch who cursed him (by exposing her to be so contained and old that her skins cracks and crumbles when punched: revealing a hollow interior)...and then sink his teeth into the flesh of a young girl, herself a genius (struck by haunting “visions” created from figments of Barnabus’ own past).  Barnabus does precisely what Burton must do: hypnotize the young into taking cultish interest in his dated style.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Depp’s characters have long figured as a stand-in for Burton.  Starting with the sexy teen outsider Edward Scissorhands, a grandiose fantasy of Burton’s life as an eccentric artist growing up in the suburbs. When Burton was chained to Disney during the production of Alice in Wonderland; the Mad Hatter (played by Depp) was held prisoner in the Red Queen’s palace, which looked uncannily similar to the Disney Castle.

 

These freakish caricatures that Depp has portrayed have always annoyed me for retaining cuteness despite representing Burton’s twisted fantasies of self-loathing:  the emoting emo outsider (Edward, 1990), the Wacko Jacko pedo (Wonka, 2005), the schizophrenic artist (Mad Hatter, 2010), and the psychopathically vengeful barber (Todd) are all turned into heartthrobs, whose quirks (many of which resemble stereotypical gay mannerisms) just make them more endearing and sexy. And in Dark Shadows, disgustingly, this weird teen hearthrob has grown up...but his love interest has remained a teenager.

I guess I've been bitten because I suddenly wish to grant Burton and Depp the redemption they've never needed from me, give my youth over to the worship of their cult, and herald them as masters of contemporary cinema.