Summary:
When viewing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, keep in mind that it is still a children's film and parents should not be afraid to take their children to see it. However, Burton's adaptation of Dahl's already dark and discomforting novel is not sugar-coated with warm, sunny settings and friendly, likeable characters.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
This once beautiful dream of a novel has been horrifically realised in typical Tim Burton fashion of ominous, grey skies and grim, dour symbolism. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, adapted from Roald Dahl's novel, Willy Wonker and the Chocolate Factory, has been crafted as a colourful masterpiece with a twist of darkness and no two minds could be better put together to develop such a creation than Burton's and Dahl's. Charlie is no longer your typical children's story, but a dark and gloomy nightmarish tale of Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) and his hero, the mysterious chocolate tycoon Willy Wonker (Johnny Depp).
After years of isolation and seclusion, Wonker is secretly looking for a successor to his chocolate industry and, with no family to turn to, looks to the youth and exuberance of five children who have won the rare honour of a tour of Wonker's massive chocolate factory. After initially being treated to a violent puppet show out the front of the Wonker's palace, where child puppets are symbolically burnt to a crisp, what the children and their guardians find inside is no average chocolate factory. Chocolate rivers, fireworks rooms and tiny, musical, pigmy workers are just some of the wonders of Wonker's bizarre and secluded factory. While most of the children on the tour are despicably rotten, there is a diamond in the rough, Charlie Bucket, whose family on the brink of homelessness buy him a Wonker bar with the final golden ticket gaining him entry into the peculiar world of Willy Wonker.
Depp as Wonker is the mortifying mix of Michael Jackson and Andy Warhol, whose pale white complexion and straight dark hair contrasts heavily from Gene Wilder's original portrayal of the character in the 1971 adaptation of the novel. Whilst Wilder's version of Wonker has always been considered frighteningly psychotic, Depp has completely exploited this fear-inspiring role to produce a character that pushes the limit of suitability for children. However weird and wonderful the character is, he is seen as far more humanistic than in the original version of the film. Trekking in the previously unseen Loompa land and harrowing scenes of Wonker's childhood as son of a renowned dentist are some aspects of the film which give the Wonker character more depth than in the 1971 film. This film also delves into the plight of Willy Wonker, his life-long search for acceptance by his father for running away and dedicating his life to the antithesis of his father's profession. No-one out-acts Depp in the film. Highmore as Charlie plays the role with the elements essential to his character, such as naivety and innocence, but his youth and inexperience limits him a little. One feels very sympathetic towards Noah Taylor and Helena Carter as Charlie's parents, the beaten down victims of England's working class, while any ounce of sympathy is easily ignored for Julia Winter as Veruca Salt or Annasophia Robb as Violet Beauregarde. David Kelly offers some cheerful merriment as Grandpa Joe, while Christopher Lee plays the sinister and almost heart-breaking role of Dr Wonker, Willy's father.
The cinematography of the film is typical Tim Burton, mixing elements of Edward Scissorhands with the more recent Big Fish. Wonker's factory and the Bucket residence are both in the same, industrial-ridden English town, where it is seemingly always winter. Similar to his work in Batman, Burton fills every outdoor shot with impenetrable grey skies and dark, dilapidated, overbearing buildings. While the colours on screen are dull and monotonous, every shot is buzzing with life and action. The shots inside the palatial factory are simply spectacular, with colourful pangs of liveliness found at every turn. The first room, with wondrous meadows of edible grass and trees and a chocolate river, sets the scene for what is to follow. The tour precedes via candy longboat, driven by a hoard of Oompa Loompas - Wonker's cocoa bean salary workers. These Oompa Loompas are not like those in the original film. Identical in their appearance, portrayed by Deep Roy, the Oompa Loompas still sing, but this time rocky power ballads and jazzy salsa jingles are their tunes. The creatures add comic relief to Wonker's twisted world, although just about everything that goes on in the factory is somewhat humorous in itself. The tour group find themselves in many other brilliantly rendered settings, such as the invention room and the fireworks room, where infinite colours are fired across the dark, cylindrical airspace for no point at all. Even the scene where Wonker and Charlie return to Dr. Wonker's house - a solitary two-storey dark brick apartment against a white backdrop of thick snow - the audience is treated to aesthetic excitement and intrigue.
Although essentially a children's story, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory touches on some important issues, such as industrial relations and family loyalty. Charlie's father is the victim of technology making jobs redundant, and also of the vicious cycle of the mid-twentieth century working class in England. Wonker's yearning for a family of his own shows a more compassionate side of the eccentric chocolatier and, through learning from Charlie and his family, displays the importance of family life in society. Although these issues were also present in Dahl's novel, Burton, together with executive producer, Dahl's daughter, Felicity, sought to accentuate and emphasise these themes.
When viewing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, keep in mind that it is still a children's film and parents should not be afraid to take their children to see it. However, Burton's adaptation of Dahl's already dark and discomforting novel is not sugar-coated with warm, sunny settings and friendly, likeable characters. Depp as Wonker is not meant to be seen as a compassionate figure, but whose grim perception of justice is the twisted result of years of isolation and a life without family. Through magnificent visual scope typical of Burton and unique original soundtrack of the mysterious factory workers, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory leaves the viewer with two feelings: a craving for chocolate and a sickly feeling as though too much of it has been eaten.
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