![“Big Fish” and my own story [Mizumaru Kawahara’s CINEMONOLOGUE Vol.37]](https://cinemore.jp/images/e2fddb9dc8ce40f91229ca50e6365431eeaf4707c181f159aac7830635be66f6.png)
A tall tale as an interpretation of life
Eventually, Edward's end comes. Realizing the moment, he asks his son to tell him the story. Although Will was not used to it, he imitated his father's tone and improvised the grand finale. When the father and son escape from the hospital and reach the river, they are greeted by the people they have met on the shore. When Will carries his father into the river, Edward transforms into a large fish and swims away. Edward's death thus became a story, and the grand fiction was finally completed.
Among the crowd attending Edward's funeral, Will spots faces similar to those in his father's stories and learns that they were real and that there is The Truth to his father's stories. . The scene where the twins appear is especially good. In Edward's story, they were twins who shared the same lower body, but the twins who appeared at the funeral were sitting side by side, talking with other attendees. Just then, the next moment, one of them leaves that place and goes somewhere else, and you realize that they are two different bodies. The man who was thought to be a giant, about 5 meters tall, was actually about 2 meters tall. Edward created stories by dramatizing and exaggerating the people and events he encountered in his life.
Dr. Bennett, the family's doctor who treated Edward, also revealed The Truth about the day Will was born. Edward was unable to attend the birth that day due to his sales job. Perhaps because he regrets this, he tells a story about how he caught a big fish, trying to make the truth a little more pleasant. Edward's fiction is not just escapism or deception. I think it's a way of looking at things and encounters that makes life more enjoyable.
Director Tim Burton lost his father shortly before this film was released, and his first son was born in the same year the film was released, which coincides with Will in the film. All of Burton's films have the impression of being personal works, but this one in particular seems to reach a deeper level. What's great about it is that the viewer also feels like the story is their own. The appeal of Burton's films is that they make you want to cherish them as if they were your own special movies. Personal experiences and stories appear on screen, transformed slightly (or even significantly) by the imagination. The movie itself may be the same as Edward's tall tale.
Illustrations and text: Mizumaru Kawahara
Born in 1991. Illustrator. In addition to illustrations and covers for magazines and books, there are also illustration columns for movies and books. New movie reviews are currently being serialized in "SPUR" (Shueisha).
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