REVIEW : "Edward Scissorhands" (1990) - Movie by Tim Burton

I remember friends telling me about this new "fantasy" movie called Edward Scissorhands back in the early nineties. I will admit that back then I was just your average video movie rental kind of guy who primarily watched whatever was mainstream popular (In some ways, the video age helped destroy some of the legacy of old classics and Avantgarde). But a young man looking like a ghost with scissors for hands, was not exactly what I was looking for.

When I eventually watched it (on VHS), it did not settle with me at all. I understood the old school horror references and such, but this sort of B-movie horror was never my cup up tea in the first place. I used to classify this as primarily for teens who wanted something colourful, glossy and safely horrifying. Completely out of my scope.

Fast forward some 25 odd years and it arrives on blu-ray in my collection (it was a cheap second hander). I thought, let me give it a try. I could not remember the story at all and I only had that vision of Depp in outlandish goth costume and makeup ... and oh, Winona Ryder. I remember her ... but that was more because of her looks than her acting as such.

Some movies deserves to be seen in all the glory of modern digital high definition and not on some lousy, worn out, rental VHS, cut to 4:3. I like to revisit old movies that have received something like a new life as we have entered into this glorious digital restoration age, as it gives it its rightful expression and the fairest judgment. And it is safe to say that visually this one is a completely different story now. My blu-ray version looks absolutely stunning.

I understand better now the story that Burton wants to tell. It is about feeling isolated in a world where you absolutely do not fit in. And even when you try to act as best you can, you are either destroying something, being judged or used for the benefit of others. The tale is as old as anything and it is an integral part of the horror lore I guess since it lends itself so easily to isolated, haunted houses and quirky characters and such.

The story is framed as a bedtime story told to a little girl by a grandmother - about a man Edward with scissors for hands. Edward lives alone in an old castle on top a hill at the end of the road of a cookie cutter build suburban area where everyone lives the American consumer dream of the sixties and seventies. Except, that they also have more modern equipment like CD players and VCRs. So it is a mix of everything suburban up until the time of the filming of the movie so to say.

Edward is found by a door to door sales-woman, and she eventually ends up inviting him to come live with her family down in suburbia. Edward is I awe of all the colourful and fancy "stuff" everywhere and the beauty of the daughter in the family. But he is like a fish out of water who fits in like a round peg in a square hole.

His hands is always in the way or they are clumsy and pretty useless for all the conventional things that he is expected to do. But at the same time, they discover that when he uses them for something that he is good at, he can do artistic things that no one else is capable of. He can cut a bush into the shape of a dinosaur just like that or give all the women in the neighbourhood a fancy new haircut.

As the women all take a liking to him, and even starts to fancy him sexually because of his "exotic" nature I guess, including the hot young daughter, he also becomes a rival to her fiancée, who will do almost anything to get Edward out of the picture.

Edward is a pretty much clueless boy who can be used any way a narcissist would please, and he is set up so he ends in situations where he is bound to hurt people with his awkward but dangerous hands. He eventually ends up being chased away and flees to his old, isolated gothic castle where he can be left alone.

It is not an overstatement to say that Tim Burton uses pretty much every horror cliché in the book with Edward Scissorhands. But in his defence I would say that he manages to bring the goth horror down to an innocent level and combine it with an everyday world on the other side. Granted, that everyday world is not exactly correct, but somewhat distorted and caricatured.

It is no secret either that the movie is highly autobiographical and the life of Edward is condensed from Burton´s own experiences in a likewise suburban upbringing. It is clear to me that Burton must have some mild form of autism. Edward´s complete lack of understanding the people and the things around him and his empty gaze all points to autism to me.

I just point this out, out of interest and respect not as a way of putting him or his movies down. It is what makes Tim Burton, Tim Burton. His style pretty much goes through all his movies and he tends to use the same lead character, Johnny Depp, as he is probably one of the few people who he trusts and who understands his weird universe.

The downside is though, that the emotional depth of Burton´s movies are always pretty shallow. They do not have the ability to stir those deep sensations that "normal" directors can in their (best) work. This movie feels infantile and hollow at the core. I know it is supposedly a good night story but still. When you truly open it up, there is nothing there. Just like for an autistic person I guess. There is no real empathy or sympathy, just a pretty self-centred and to some extend, self-pitying personality, who I cannot identify with, more than on a platonic level.

So while the cinematography is pretty awe-inspiring at times, it feels disconnected with the story and more like a toy-story kid playing a game with all the various unconnected pieces of toys in the room and sticking it together to something that could be called coherent. He does not go deep where he needs to go deep, but stays safely in the teenage, glossy and also pretty sentimental mood, when he should be digging deep in my opinion. There are obvious references to silent German expressionism, which is a specific passion of mine, but it cannot bring more than an "ah, he got that from Nosferatu.." - like remark. It is not an expressionist movie as such.

So all in all, it gets a small recommendation from me for an entertaining watch. But as a story it does not work for me. If you cut all the fancy art away, there is not really any interesting or engaging story there. And when it all comes down, this is where the basic meat of good cinema is. All stories have been told, it is the way it is told .. and the way does not work for me in Edward Scissorhands.

5/10