“Big Fish” is a strange creature. It was one of last year’s more divisive Oscar hopefuls, aggressively promoted by its fans and equally dismissed by those who found it too sappy and poorly-developed.

It features Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) as a man on his deathbed whose son, Will (Billy Crudup), has come home to be with him after a long estrangement. Edward was rarely home when Will was a child and, when he did come home, filled Will’s head with tales of witches, exotic lands and bizarre adventures. These stories which dazzled Will as a child have since become nonsense to him, his amusement and affection for his father now replaced with disgust.

With a surprisingly complicated structure, “Fish” jumps between the present and the past, serving both as a story about a dying father and a bitter son and a flashback from the son’s perspective of all the outlandish stories that his father told him during his youth.

Now those who have dismissed “Fish” outright have enjoyed the film’s visual style, brought to life by the incomparable imagination of director Tim Burton (“Batman”), but have seen it as a frivolous creation that ultimately goes nowhere.

When I look at “Fish,” I see something far more substantive and imaginative. In every one of Edward’s stories, there is a moral to be taken away. Take his journey to Spectre, the idealistic city of grass-covered streets, where people run barefoot and no one has ever left. Or how about Edward’s choice to take the road less traveled, his first encounter with the love of his life or his rescuing of Spectre from the depths of poverty?

I have always felt that “Fish” is really a statement about movies today. In the eyes of the cynical son, I see the eyes of the modern filmgoer, who longs for more realism and less expression; more rules and fewer surprises. And in the father I see the great storytellers whose very life has been spent finding creative ways to sew his yarns. He sees life as the exciting ride it should be, rather than the predictable, drab existence that it sometimes is.

Burton himself seems to suggest this disparity in a featurette on the DVD, where he talks about “Fish” not as a film of black or white, but existing somewhere in the middle, where realism and surrealism can exist hand-in-hand. Three other featurettes, focusing on the film’s creatures, the world of myths and the translation of Daniel Wallace’s book to the screen further explore this balance between artistry and reality.

While some may be more interested by the interactive Tim Burton quiz, or one of the three features on the characters of the film, I am more interested in the features that probe the depths of “Fish’s” messages. Unlike so many films, where the meanings and messages are painfully obvious, “Fish” is about far more than its themes or characters.

My favorite feature on the DVD is the commentary track by Burton himself. Breaking the mold of most commentary tracks, which simply discuss a film from point A to point B, Burton’s track is more of an interview than a dialogue as he responds to questions about his philosophy, style and artistic tendencies. It is a feature more interested in the subjective process of filmmaking than the concrete images of the film itself, and I think it is appropriate that we take away a greater sense of what Burton was hoping to accomplish rather than simply what made it to celluloid.

In terms of both the film and its DVD extras, I continue to be infatuated with “Fish’s” vision. This is not a film simply of execution and delivery, but an experience with a distinct feel and aura of imagination. The extras are not only about how something was accomplished, but why it was done in the first place. And the same can be said about the movie itself, which blends its substance with its style, never afraid to show the heart that went into its making.

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