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THE NIGHTMARES OF CHRISTMAS . Not such a Merry Christmas

Christmas films also go to one extreme or the other: either as sweet as marzipan or sour as a New Year?s hangover. Here's a look at the dark side.

filmotech.com. 18/01/2011. Themes

The ?Season of Joy? has been portrayed on film a great many times ? as a backdrop for zany comedies, weepy melodramas, and even some disaster movies. This Christmas, it's Borja Cobeaga's turn, with his timely new film No Controles, featuring airports and New Year's Eve. This reminds us of other classics of the genre, which we will call ?The Nightmares of Christmas?.

There's nothing lukewarm about Christmas ? either you love it or hate it. The fact is that this time of year, which brings either interminable family reunions, or the lonely grandeur of solitude, brings out the best and the worst in all of us and, in the end, Yule-Tide is a gold mine for either the most sentimental or crazy stories in cinema. If you are more of a Scrooge and have only caught snatches of It's a Wonderful Life between naps, we would like to remind you of some of the best Christmas movies and the ?goodwill? they inspire, which has little or nothing to do with Christmas carols.

No Controles

Showing in Spanish cinemas now is No Controles, Borja Cobeaga's second film to date, a black comedy set in a motel over the last night of the year. A young man, Unax Ugalde, is desperate to win back his former girlfriend against all odds, including several feet of snow which leaves planes stranded in the airports. This is certainly a very topical theme, given the recent snowfall over Europe and the air traffic controllers' strike.

Trading Places

In fact, confronting all kinds of disasters and unexpected events during the season to be merry is the fate of the heroes and heroines of many of these films. For example, Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places, by John Landis (1983), plays a disgraced broker who gatecrashes his former company?s Christmas party dressed as Santa Claus. Eddie Murphy plays a street con artist in this, his second big screen appearance and shares moments with Aykroyd so hilarious that they have passed into the annals of film legend.  

"A Christmas Carol", the famous novella by Charles Dickens, has been adapted for cinema many times. The first version dates back to 1935 and the latest, which came out recently, was shot in 3D. However, perhaps the most emotive version is Scrooged, by Richard Donner (1988), in which the heartless miser of the title is a cynical TV executive played by the inimitable Bill Murray, in one of his most characteristic roles. That Christmas he was beset by phantasmagorical experiences which could have made him change his wicked ways.

Scrooged

Home Alone, by Chris Columbus (1990), turned Macaulay Culkin into a superstar overnight. This eight-year-old boy is inadvertently right at home in Chicago by his parents when they leave to spend Christmas away. However, it's the burglars who break into the house who have the most horrendous Christmas, thanks to all the tricks ?Kevin? plays on them.

Billy Bob Thorton was a highly disreputable Santa Claus in Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa (2003), a surprising black comedy about a petty criminal hired as Santa Claus by some department stores; taking advantage of the costume, his plan is to rob them, accompanied by his black midget sidekick. A rude, vulgar and drunken Santa who thrilled audiences but failed to enchant the American censors, who cut a whole ten minutes out of it.

The Nightmare before Christmas

However, on the subject of ?black? Christmases we mustn't forget the darkest of them all: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Directed by Henry Sellick, but bearing the unmistakable hallmark of its real creator Tim Burton, this has become a cult film, and the Disney favourite of all Goths worthy of the name. Burton also betrayed his fondness for the festive season in other famous films like Edward Scissorhands and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, though with his usual sinister touch. 

On a lighter note, comedian Will Ferrell gets dressed up as one of Santa's little helpers in Elf (2003) and, when he finds out that really he's a human, he travels from the North Pole to New York to meet his father, an enemy of Christmas. With his absent-minded look, lost in a concrete jungle of cynical non-believers, Ferrell makes an unforgettable elf, funny yet oddly reassuring.

Gremlins

Another actor sporting green for the festive season was Jim Carrey, in The Grinch by Ron Howard (2000). Here he plays an evil creature covered in green fur whose aim is to steal Christmas. Many would think that was a good idea.

Sometimes, Christmas starts off merrily enough but then degenerates into a nightmare, especially where animals are involved. A little boy is given a cute pet, but warned that if it is fed after midnight it will multiply and turn into a horde of uncontrollable vermin called Gremlins. They are partial to New Year's Eve, cross-dressing and imitating Frank Sinatra. 

El día de la bestia (The Day of the Beast)

Talking of disastrous Christmases, we can't leave out a certain New York detective who travels to Los Angeles on Christmas Eve. Bruce Willis in Die Hard (1988) got mixed up with a group of terrorists ensconced in a building, taking hostages and declaring war on the police. It's a great action-packed thriller which spawned several successful sequels. 

Nonetheless, the most twisted and iconoclastic vision of Christmas was actually produced by our own Spanish film industry. In El día de la bestia (The Day of the Beast) Alex de la Iglesia follows the adventures of a priest who has deciphered the secret message of the Gospels, according to which the Antichrist will be born in Madrid on December 25, 1995. The priest is prepared to go to any lengths to prevent this, enlisting unlikely helpers and chasing clues all over the city, lit up and full of eager Christmas shoppers. This brilliant film, funny, caustic and violent, made its director famous and he duly won the Goya for Best Director in 1995.

Plácido

Plácido, (1961), a grotesque vision of Christmas from Luis García Berlanga, is one of the most complete, well-rounded works by this filmmaker from Valencia. It's a simple tale, the main plot of which revolves around the desperate owner of a three-wheeled van and his experiences on Christmas Eve in a provincial town, where the wealthier citizens customarily invite one beggar to sit at their tables and share their Christmas feasts. Biting humour and brutal irony blend together perfectly in this satire, unique in Spanish cinema, and which ends up with a Christmas Carol:

En este mundo no hay caridad,
ni nunca la ha habido,
ni nunca la habrá.

This could be translated as:

There's no charity in this world,
And there never was,
Nor will there ever be.

How right he was...

 

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