I love this movie. The more I think about it, the more to compares to the movie 'Life is Beautiful' from a particular angle. I shall come to that in greater detail further down in the article. First a little bit of more information on the movie. ‘Big Fish’ is a 2003 film directed by Tim Burton starring Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor essaying the older and the younger versions of the of the protagonist, Edward Bloom, respectively.
I have watched the movies once, it lingered in my memory for many hours and I have not stopped recommending the movie to fellow movie enthusiasts ever since. If you are a friend reading this review or interpretation, as I would like to pompously call it, do watch the movie and if you happen to be the more generous types buy me the DVD. As I see it, the movie can be interpreted from three sides and thinking about each of it is what has made the movie a personal favorite.
The most obvious interpretation of the movie would be that life gives you something and it is up to you to take it either cheerfully in a grand positive way with you placed at the center of the universe or just imagine it to be a bland tiresome journey. Edward Bloom chooses to live life in the first way. As the film reaches the finish line this is the lesson his son, Will Bloom played by Billy Crudup, learns.
The movie is about the act of storytelling. By nature, the act of narrating a story automatically gives the incident you narrate a dramatic touch. It is not that you lie while anecdoting, if that is the word I want - you tell the truth but adding to it an element of drama to capture the attention of your audience. (like Tony Montana says elsewhere - I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.) ‘Big Fish’ is about the act of narrating incidents and giving them that dramatic touch. At the end of the movie you actually see that all the fantastic people you come across in Edward’s stories actually exist.
At the centre of the movie is the ongoing father-son conflict. If you have seen ‘Life is Beautiful’, you must remember that the father tells charming lies to his son. As the story ends, the father dies. Imagine that the father comes out successfully of the concentration camp and grows old along with his son, now the son has become an adult. The father's character never changes, it is ingrained in his personality - remember the ways in which he woos his girl in the first half – he has been telling entertaining stories all his life. The son... the son now has his own individuality and there arises a conflict. The child loves the fantastic tales the father tells him as a child. The father is a superhero to the son and listens to all the things the father says with wide-eyed enthusiasm and then when the consciousness and individuality arises and he becomes an adult, the same stories get tiresome and he looks at the father as a tedious bore. It is the fall of a hero. Edward Bloom in ‘Big Fish’ is Guido after he gets out of the camp and Will Bloom is Joshua after his loss of innocence.
This is one of the best films I have seen and I recommend it to you. The visual style, which is a hallmark of most of Tim Burton movies, the special effects merging seamlessly into the storyline, all these details could be read in reviews by other distinguished movie reviewers.
I like the movie "Life Is Beautiful" its done very beautifully..i saw it long long back.(i have the book in my hand im trying to read it now)wen i read through ur review on Big fish...i regret y i dint see it wen the CD was infront of me yrs ago. Hey did u see the movie "Shabdh" of sanjay dutt n aishwarya rai? story line is lil same.
Posted by: Arpitha | September 20, 2007 at 05:31 PM