Tim Burton
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice is one of those cult films that have shaped the dark imagination of at least two generations of young people, along with other films that Tim Burton made after what can be defined as the Big Bang of his personal neo-gothic universe. A universe made of dark humor, melancholy, love for the macabre and craftsmanship, for old horror films and, above all, for the outcasts, the misfits, anyone who feels different from everyone else. Much like Burton himself felt during his childhood, and deep down, he never stopped feeling this way.

Today, those kids touched by Burton's romantic imagery are young adults or mature individuals, of the same age as Lydia Deetz, who, after thirty-six years, returns as the protagonist of this long-awaited, much-discussed, announced, and debunked sequel, now finally, and truly, in theaters.
Winona Ryder, seventeen at the time of the first film, was the first icon of the Burbank director’s cinema. Even before Johnny Depp, who would star alongside her in Edward Scissorhands, Burton's most poignant work. A film that still breaks hearts every time, even when watched again after thirty-four years.

And how, then, can Beetlejuice be reprised after so long?

This is the era of long-distance sequels: Twin Peaks, Blade Runner, Trainspotting, Top Gun.
There is an existential question behind the obvious commercial and nostalgic logic of revisiting iconic and fundamental works like these.

Time passes, slipping away at the same speed as a snowflake melts on contact with the skin. Like the snow that constantly falls in Batman Returns. On the living and the dead, as Joyce would say.
The protagonists of the past have aged, like those who were already there at the end of the '80s. Seeing them again, finding those places, those spaces, those shots, those tunes, generates an emotion a thousand times more powerful than that of a sequel made shortly after to strike while the iron is hot.

An emotion that carries with it much more than what is considered when quickly discussing this type of operation. It reminds us that we are still here.
It's not too late, as long as we're here. As long as the train of souls won't pass for us too.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice shows Burton in great form, well five years after the much-maligned Dumbo, a beautiful film that, however, almost cost Burton his retirement from the world of cinema. The pressures from Disney were not easy to endure, and indeed never had there been such a gap between one film and another for the Californian director.

Leaving the Mickey Mouse company revived Burton, with the Netflixian pop revival of Wednesday in between, which brought him back popularity and enthusiasm. Also, the relationship with Monica Bellucci, here in a very fitting and effective role, has certainly contributed to this great return.

Burton returns with everything that has always characterized him. He returns with Halloween, returns to reference his beloved Mario Bava, returns to his devastated, mangled, mutilated creatures. Incomplete.
He returns to stage the world of the afterlife, that in the masterpiece Corpse Bride showed much more vitality than our sad living world.
The afterlife of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is as organized and bustling as the world inhabited by those who haven't crossed the threshold.

The film, although obviously without being able to replicate the spirit of the first chapter (which would be totally senseless, anyway) is fun, exciting at times, engaging, and entertaining.
Not all the protagonists of the original have returned, and on the other hand, the dead cannot age; this easily explains why Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin were not brought back. Those present are now thirty-six years closer to the aforementioned train's passage and the dance of death. As is Tim Burton himself.

Who however, today not far from seventy, still retains his purity of soul and his beauty.
Not everyone deserves this beauty. But as long as he makes films, I will be happy to love him as I did when I was a child.

And even if the marriage between Lydia and Beetlejuice really won't happen, neither tomorrow nor ever, they will meet in dreams. A dream not exactly pleasant for Lydia, but you can't have everything.