Halloween was a bust this year, so I ended up spending mine at home doing absolutely nothing, until I decided to grab a movie just to fill the void. I watched 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' by Tim Burton. I've lost count on how many times I've watched it, but it never seems to get old.
This clay-mation film introduces us to a withered forest, which tall trees stand, each having a decorated door on their bark which represents one of the seasonal holidays. We are first introduced to Halloween Town, as the name implies, this 'world' is home to ghosts, ghouls, witches and other entities related to the Holiday. The Gothic buildings and monuments further emphasise the Halloween feeling towards this town. The town's most favoured, also our main protagonist, Jack Skellington, also titled, 'The Pumpkin King', is the master of terror, the mind behind all the town's festivities, but after one Halloween, Jack becomes bored with the usual workings of Halloween, and feels disheartened. From this point onwards, transformation in the film's plot emerges.
Jack discovers the forest with the doorways to other worlds, and he stumbles upon the doorway to Christmas. Here, we see a complete change in the environment, Christmas town holds inches of glittered snow, small brick red houses lines with tinsel, Christmas lights. Elves in colourful uniforms working on toys. A total contrast to the dark and eerie Halloween Town. Jack was inspired, and from being the master of terror, he wished to bring the warmth of Christmas to Halloween town. I wont continue the plot, but ill start listing down a number of transformations with regards to the plot.
- The environment - The transition from Halloween town to the warmth of Christmas Town
- Jack's views - After his encounter with Christmas town, his views transformed into that of colour, brightness and jolliness, and thus began his profuse research into the holiday and integrating it with Halloween.The film itself is a musical, which includes dancing. I couldnt help but realise how much it reminded me of Danse Macabre.
Think of it this way. You've got similar elements, being the skeletons, a dark feel to it., but then, you notice how the dark, almost haunting figures of the corpses dancing in Danse Macabre, to the comical and somewhat child friendly design of the characters in this film.
Jack Skellington, as well as the towns community, are more rounded, somewhat pleasing to the eye, colourful and invoke a certain joy in the viewer rather than pure fright. So you could say that the concept and style as transformed, for the reason of its context.