Though it is set 50 years ago, Tim Burton’s latest movie, Big Eyes, is eerily a film of the moment, writes Jordan Hoffman.
The irony of Big Eyes, Tim Burton’s film about the authorial stamp on works of art, is that it is nearly bereft of what makes Burton’s work so recognisable. The deeper implications of this are a matter for Burton and his shrink, but for us in the audience it’s a welcome recharge from a man whose last picture, Frankenweenie, was merely a longer version of one of his earlier projects.
Big Eyes re-teams Burton with screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who collaborated on the (dare I use the M-word?) masterpiece Ed Wood. Both films are about a misunderstood artist, but the similarities end there.
The new film tells the strange but true story of Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), a divorcée who arrives with her young daughter in San Francisco in the late 1950s. She’s a bit of a mystery – women simply didn’t just up and leave their husbands back then – but she takes great pride in her paintings. Her work, at first mostly portraits of her daughter, takes the cute but sad form of waif-like children with dark, enormous eyes.
The slow burn of Big Eyes is watching Margaret find the courage to confront her husband, resulting in a fascinating and funny trial. Though it is set 50 years ago, Big Eyes is eerily a film of the moment.
This movie wants to be an oil painting, but ends up being more of a mass-produced, though good-quality, print.
Full review via Mail & Guardian
Showing at The Labia and Ster Kinekor
