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Rating: "Don't try to understand it, you just have to imagine it!"
In 1990 (when I was just over seven years old) I was captivated for the first time by Tim Burton's gothic-visionary fantasy with his "Edward Scissorhands". But it was only three years later that I completely fell in love with this artist's genius, and it was with "Nightmare Before Christmas".
After a full sixteen years and with technology in the film industry having made giant leaps, this stop-motion animated film remains there, in a niche of my heart, always present and able to come alive in my mind with its images when I least expect it.
The story, I think, is known by almost everyone... After all, the work had a decent success, engaging among its audience not only children and youngsters but also adults. Jack Skellington is the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, one of the many "universes" of the Holiday World. His village lives, pulsates only in relation to this holiday, for which everyone prepares throughout the year. A crowd made up of vampires, werewolves, swamp monsters, psychopaths, and anything else that can be drawn from nightmares and horror tradition always tries each time to create the perfect Halloween, memorable. But Jack is tired, he's looking for something more, and one day he finds it, wandering through a forest with his loyal ghost dog, Zero. He reaches a clearing, where each tree trunk bears the image of a holiday (an Easter egg, a turkey, etc.): they are all portals to various parallel "universes", only that Jack doesn't know it yet. Attracted by the image of a strange green tree with many lights and garlands, he opens the door and finds himself catapulted into the World of Christmas. Here he confronts this new reality for the first time and is so amazed and fascinated that he decides that this will be the turning point for the next celebrations in his town: to recreate Christmas in the world of Halloween.
Without revealing the continuation of the plot, you can well imagine what consequences our character will face: with all his goodwill (and also that of the townspeople), his party will be a bit different from the one he had seen and dreamed of. If to all this we add the kidnapping of Santa Claus ("Babbo Nachele", as he's called by the Pumpkin King to justify to the villagers his horrifying aspect and the claws, thus making his image more acceptable to them) and his temporary imprisonment at the antagonist's lair, the Boogeyman, the game is done. It will be up to Jack to understand what his role in the holidays really is (whether that of the skeletal Pumpkin King or that of a "thin" and reimagined Santa Claus in a horror style), and consequently, it will be up to him (also with the help of Sally, a rag doll who secretly loves him, and Zero) to fix a situation that, unintentionally, has turned into a catastrophe for the entire "real" world.
Joyful and lively film (despite its dark settings), enriched by an enchanting and engaging soundtrack (curated in Italy by Renato Zero, originally by Danny Elfman), and made special by a plot that entertains and above all is able to touch chords in your heart that you didn't believe it could reach.
At Christmas, I love to watch it again, along with the aforementioned "Edward Scissorhands". Together they indeed manage to debunk Christmas as it is often meant to be transmitted to us: sugary, sentimental, forcibly joyful. Undeniable merit both of Burton (who crafted the story and concept) and also the director who managed to bring his visions to life, Henry Selick.
"Nightmare Before Christmas" is a different point of view, a "gothic fairy tale" as it has often been defined (and which Burton has accustomed us to), but it is also an invitation to believe in our dreams, to make what we desire the most a reality.
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