Somebody has been studying Tim Burton. That somebody appears to be writer/director/star/lead singer of French rock band Dionysos, Mathias Malzieu, who penned a tale about a 19th century boy with a small cuckoo-clock for a heart. One wonders how this tale changes with time. That one just struck me. Say, if this story is told in the early 20th century, is his heart a pocket watch? If told B.C.E., is it a sun dial? If told now, is it a fit bit? Whatever the circumstance, Malzieu embraced his inner macabre and imagined a forever-winter world of spindly-legged people, random horrors and a romantic hero with cogs and springs where his heart should be. Tim Burton would be so proud.
Well, mon ami, you do realize that all Tim Burton films top out at 3 stars max, no? Why? Because production design should never be the best thing about your film.
Jack (voice of Malzieu) was born on the coldest day of the year. It was so cold… “HOW COLD WAS IT?”… it was so cold that his little heart froze up immediately and the mystical midwife has to replace it on the spot with a cuckoo-clock. Like any good midwife, Madeleine, of course, has several cuckoo clocks of various shapes and sizes ready to do the trick. She sets down the rules immediately: 1) Don’t play with the hands. 2) Don’t get mad. 3) Don’t ever fall in love. 4) Don’t run out the shotclock. 5) Don’t make cheesy jokes about your “ticker.” 6) Don’t ever make a lame excuse when you’re late. OK, I made the last three up, but rarely has a film called for a “don’t feed them after midnight” joke like this one.
After fighting this coldest day ever, Jack’s mom then skips back out into it, leaving the child to the permanent care of the nurse/soothsayer/horologist who raises him as one might raise a sofa or a coffee pot. Finally, at age 10, Jack gets to go outside. Reminded of the rules on the spot, he cannot wait to break them. I swear I’m not making this up; not only does he fall in love; he falls in love with exactly the first girl he meets and starts waxing rhapsodic-like to musical urchin Miss Acacia (Olivia Ruiz) before he even lays hands on her organ grinder. Naturally Jack is devastated and almost killed by the effort, so as a reward he’s sent to school and bullied for years by Joe (Grand Corps Malade).
In two minutes of screen time, a series of stupid things happen – Jack accidentally injures Joe; thinking he’s killed the bully, Jack runs home where mom tells him to leave the country while she takes the fall. And then Jack the Skipper leaves on this bizarre accordion train and gets chased by Jack the Ripper.
Ok, if you can stomach that, just wait until he finds Miss Acacia
and she denies his love because she’s already in love … with him. I’m seriously too tired right now to slap my forehead.
Like any Tim Burton film, Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart has gorgeous art direction. It also has just enough touches of delight to lure me from the land of hate. Either Malzieu or Stéphane Berla has a thing for stop-motion train fun because the scenes on tracks are the most delightful in the film. I say this without a shred of doubt while noting this film is a romance. These guys suck at romance. Really suck at it. Cuckoo-Clock is also helped along by an unrelenting non-sequitur soundtrack. Perhaps something was lost in translation, but neither the nothing tunes, nor their ill-fitting and irrelevant lyrics add anything to the film. I don’t know for sure, but my guess is this film is adored (or would be were it universal) in pockets of the world where cinema is about style first and foremost. That’s just a guess. Yes, this feels like a Tim Burton homage; there are some nice touches, but you’ll opt for any decent Pixar long ahead of this one.
♪Don’t make me feel any colder
Wind already freezes my tears
Think I could fall in love yet
But first I gotta reset my gears
It’s up to me to be bolder
Yes, that is a clock in my heart
Try not to make me upset
Or my torso’s gonna rip right apart
Ooh, in time my chest can do so much more
Ere long, it will give you the bird
In time, maybe upgrade to Seiko
Possible you won’t think this absurd♫
Rated PG, 94 Minutes
D: Stéphane Berla, Mathias Malzieu
W: Mathias Malzieu
Genre: Le Tim Burton
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Tim Burton
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The same people who dislike all Burton films
♪ Parody inspired by “Time (Clock of the Heart)”
