“Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust.” - Ursula K. Le Guin
“For fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it’s true. Children know that. Adults know it too and that’s precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living. They are afraid of dragons because they are afraid of freedom.” - Ursula K. Le Guin
Son listens to fantastical tales of his father about his life. Growing up realizes that father’s stories can’t be real. He becomes disillusioned and bitterness crips into father-son relationship. It is interesting premise that set us up for family drama. But because Tim Burton is at the director seat, we expect that those fantastical tales will get primary place.
I watched some Tim Burton movies throughout my life, both older and newer than “Big Fish”. He became known for his trademark style, fantastical visuals and storytelling. Arguably in his latest works he was lost in style, missing substance. In Big Fish we have glimpses of this surrealistic style, but it is not over the top. It works well for this movie, because it is easier to believe that all those incredible stories of father’s life indeed happened. We understand that there’s embellishment, but it is not easy to disentangle what is real and what’s not.
Poor health of the father brings the son and his wife to the father. Eventually the son starts to see that at least there are some elements of truth in those stories. Proof of his fight in Korean war. Visit to the strange town. Interestingly, more the son learns about true parts of stories, more he appreciates and understand the point of his stories.
His whole grievance was that he doesn’t know anything true about his father. How he puts it, he doesn’t know anything about him. Eventually though, he comes to realize that the biggest truth about his father IS tall tales, love of storytelling and joy it brings. There’s nothing beneath the stories which can be excavated. Or at least that’s not the point. At the ending he accepts and embraces it. On meta-level we can read the movie as general tribute to storytelling. It tells us that stories has its own truth beyond literal truth. Personally this hits directly into my heart and I really loved the movie.