Tim Burton’s ‘Big Fish’. It’s a movie about a man who loves to tell exaggerated stories about his own life. But because he appears to truly believe in those stories - and also because those stories somehow don’t reek of narcissism – our protagonist is a much loved raconteur. Everybody around him seems to adore him. Everybody, except his own son. The tall tales are for his son a source of constant embarrassment. And more than embarrassment they’re a source of confusion. Since they so seamlessly blend fact and fiction, these stories obfuscate the true identity of his father from him. The son’s bitterness deepens with passing time and eventually there are two disgruntled parties instead of one. Father and son stop talking to each other. Then comes a twist. The old man falls ill and is told that he hasn’t much time left. The son, as soon as he hears of this, rushes to his father’s bedside. Accompanying him is his very affable French wife (the enchanting Marion Cotillard) who instantly forms a warm bond with the dying man. More storytelling follows. This time, however, corroborative facts serendipitously come to light and the son gradually realises that he could have been mistaken about his father. There’s a poignant scene where he’s sitting by his unconscious dad’s hospital bed and the elderly doctor (a friend of his father’s) brings up the story of his birth. This is one of his father’s favourite stories; one that he has told dozens of times at dozens of occasions. It’s a story about how the son went sliding through the hospital corridors the day he was born. Also, that same day, his father forced the biggest fish in the river to cough-up his mislaid wedding ring. Of course, none of this is true. The doctor informs the son that his birth was as ordinary as any other. And that brings us to something about Big Fish that’s not in the least ordinary – the dialogue. It ranges from the merely good (‘It was that night I discovered that most things you consider evil and wicked are simply lonely, and lacking in social niceties’) to the outright brilliant (‘Now, it’s common knowledge that most towns of a certain size have a witch, if only to eat misbehaving children and the occasional puppy that might stray into her yard.’) Big Fish, then, is not just a story about the obliterated lines between reality and fantasy. It’s also a story about some extremely pertinent symbolism. I say pertinent because that which we call ‘Truth’ is rarely a mere concoction of pure facts. In order for it to be fundamentally understood, truth invariably needs to be supplemented with the fantastic. And who can understand this better than a people whose ancestors deliberately - and inextricably - mingled their history with mythology? Then, is the current festive season really about the return of an exiled prince? Is it indeed about his victory over a ten-headed adversary who’d abducted his wife using a flying machine? Or, was reality more prosaic? Well, as the good doctor said to our dying protagonist’s son ‘… and that’s how you were really born. However, if you ask me, I much prefer the story your father told. But then, that’s just me.’
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October 2020
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