Charlie and the chocolate factory

Tim Burton, USA/UK, 2005, 115 minutes

A terribly pale, rich eccentric, with long hair, shades and a hat invites kids to his big house and gives them sweets, which makes their parents shiver. Sounds familiar? Johnny Depp in the new version of "Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory", based on Roald Dahl book, doesn't moonwalk but he is still quite creepy.

Charlie, a poor but honest boy buys a bar of chocolate, which gives him and his grandpa access to Willy Wonka's great Chocolate Factory together with four other kids and their parents. The guests are fed with sweets and then many of them get into trouble for gluttony, mumbling or general nastiness.

Of all the remakes of Hollywood classics "Charlie and the chocolate factory" could be the most risky one. After all, who wants to mess around with the childhood memories of the generations who grew up with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka and the disturbing Oompa-loompa's? The only person crazy enough is Tim Burton, Hollywood's expert on modern fairy tales and remakes. He succeeds with the use of special effects and his vivid imagination. Also, his film goes deeper into Wonka's head than Mel Stuart's classic and becomes a film-psychoanalysys. I wonder what would Freud say about such chocolate obsession...

Review by Jan Naszewski
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2006