Miss Peregrine and the Peculiar Children was heralded as Tim Burton's comeback. Directed by Eva Green and Samuel L Jackson, the film tells the story of how a young child will enter a parallel world inked in the past and meet individuals with significant peculiarities.
A return to the roots?
With in recent years feature films less personal and of a lower quality, Tim Burton has attracted the wrath of his fans of the first hour. With Dark Shadows or Alice in Wonderland, the filmmaker has moved away from what characterized his universe dominated by works like Big Fish, Beetlejuice and of course Edward Scissorhands. Back in halftone last year with Big Eyes, Miss Peregrine was Burton's way to reconnect with his lost world.
Successful bet? Well, yes and no. The king of the Gothic actually tries to return to his roots by presenting a story that completely coincides with his crazy spirit. With this adaptation of a book released in 2011 by Ransom Riggs, Burton can effectively play with his imagination by presenting a fairy, poetic, gothic and disturbing world populated by monsters and particular individuals of all kinds. Whether in the aesthetics of the characters very simple and at the same time so complex, directly from the collective imagination, in the colorful, dilapidated decors, in perfect adequacy with the treatment of the story and finally in the image, a sumptuous photography magnifying a sought after aesthetic, Miss Peregrine fulfills her specifications. Incorporating a discreet romance between two individuals who are opposed in the manner of Edward Scissorhands, Burton clearly seeks to reconnect with his past demons and return to his particular universe. And the master succeeds many times through, for example, the design of the villains, the Sepulchres, real demonic apparitions, through the techniques of realization seeking to recover a realism pushed to its maximum as affirmed Frazer Churchill, the visual effects supervisor , who helped to create the unique appearance of the Sepulcreux, based on images of large emaciated silhouettes with sharp teeth, small eyes, sickly-looking skin without a face:
"The whole thing looks like a child's nightmare. This was the starting point for the visual design. We wanted the Sepulchres to still look a bit like the humans they had been in the past. They're just monstrous enough to be scary."
Burton also offers a range of characters quite captivating and especially interpreted by talented actors. First Miss Peregrine, brittle, authoritarian and determined, she is also understanding, protective and compassionate. Eva Green manages to transfigure this paradox with great verve and class, especially through seductive and transcendent games of gaze. Then comes the great villain of the story, Mr. Baron, played by Samuel L Jackson, always very true to himself in a game where fierceness, class, malice and raw talent mix. He makes his character a funny, charismatic and disturbing villain in a few mimics and rictus specific to his style, supported by tasty dialogues. As for the young hero of the story, it is Asa Butterfield, 19, who lends his features, having already proven himself in Scorsese's Hugo Cabret and The Ender Strategy opposite Harrison Ford.
Persistent defects?
Burton has turned in recent years to a cinema more dictated by entertainment. Since Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, this filmmaker has slightly locked himself in a laziness that is sometimes felt in his films. Poorly introduced, some situations pale in comparison, bordering on ridiculous. Miss Peregrine is no exception to the rule since Burton brings his hero into the other world in a slightly abstract way, without any real explanation. Similarly, the presentation of the characters and the way he exploits them remain slightly disappointing because of their disconcerting simplicity. Similarly, Burton gets lost in his temporal paradoxes, not posing the situation well enough for the audience to have all the cards in their hands.
Still, Miss Peregrine and the Particular Children is a high-end entertainment, skilfully playing with clichés and the collective imagination. Embellished here and there with some sumptuous visual feats, such as the fall of the bomb and the catchy flashback, or the final fight between a particular army and the Sepulchres, a completely enjoyable scene, both funny and bad-ass, Miss Peregrine and the Particular Children is a nice tale for children who feel marginalized from their classmates. An idealistic way of explaining that their world will evolve, that maturity will bring them deliverance and assurance.
