Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, set to open in Israeli theatres tomorrow, November 8, 2012, is about as noir as Disney gets. The stop-motion animated film is in black and white, with many mock-horror shades of gray. A parody-homage to Frankenstein, the 1931 film based on Mary Shelley’s novel (1818); Burton first made Frankenweenie as a short in 1984, a time when the world and Disney were not prepared to unleash such a dark comedy on young audiences.
Twenty odd years later, kids have seen and heard everything online anyway, and this film is for the most part funny and sweet, a quirky ode to the love of movies and animation. Yes, it is about bringing the dead back to life through science, but that’s kind of cool, isn’t it?
Aside from his obsession with experiments, young Victor Frankenstein seems to be the only ordinary kid in a classroom of delightfully bizarre schoolmates – the gravelly-voiced hunchback Edgar, and the spacey girl with long white hair whose cat can foretell the future. As for the adults, if my high school science teacher looked like Vincent Price I expect I would have been far more diligent about all those lab reports…
The strange, memorable characters are a lot of fun, enhanced by some great voices: Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short and Winona Ryder. If some of these types look familiar, that is no coincidence. Frankenweenie abounds with film references, I see great potential for a post-movie drinking game for the older audience members.
Most of all – I love the art in this film!
It’s beautiful to watch and funny too. Some of the climactic action scenes might be a bit scary for younger kids – I would not take a sensitive six year old to this film, but every child is different. Older kids might well enjoy putting the film in context, consider reading Shelley’s Frankenstein and seeing the 1930s flick.
Frankeneweenie will be shown here in 2D with Hebrew subtitles, and the 3D version will be screened in English without subtitles.
Frankenweenie (USA, 87 min, English)
Director: Tim Burton
Screenplay: John August, Tim Burton
Cinematography: Peter Sorg
Editing: Chris Lebenzon, Mark Solomon
Music Danny Elfman
