Big Fish is a story about stories. In the same vein as Picasso’s El arte es una mentira que nos acerca a la verdad (art is a lie that makes us realize the truth) good storytelling grips you, changes you, and lets you touch a world you would never reach following more conventional paths.

It’s a father and son story, really. The father reaches the end of his road, and having lived a rich life full of strange events, he always told the best tales. His son resented him for it; dismissed it as his father stealing the show with his lame-ass stories time and time again. And his son, realizing that he hardly knows the man he has called dad, sets to find out the truth.

And — I don’t really want to ruin it for you. The movie reminded me that fiction helps us define our world just as much as facts. Without it, we wouldn’t have non-fiction. Where would that leave us?

Sometimes fiction is just more real than what is real.

“There was a time I could see. And I have seen. Boys like these, younger than these, their arms torn out, their legs ripped off. But there isn’t nothin’ like the sight of an amputated spirit. There is no prosthetic for that. You think you’re merely sending this splendid foot soldier back home to Oregon with his tail between his legs, but I say you are… executin’ his soul! And why? Because he’s not a Bairdman. Bairdmen. You hurt this boy, you’re gonna be Baird bums, the lot of ya. And Harry, Jimmy, Trent, wherever you are out there, fuck you, too! ” – Lt. Colonel Frank Slade, Scent of a Woman

Some people will try to kill your spirit – but it only lasts forever if you let it.

Sure, the flying judo crap is a lot to swallow at first, but it goes down easy with some sugar-like cinematography so sweet it reminds you the fighting is only metaphoric.

And so it has always been with many old-school martial arts films – the fighting is something sacred that extends a part of the soul that cannot be expressed with words or art. It is representative of the synergy between the voice, the body and the heart, and it’s not surprising that it takes the writers to such extremes.

In some scenes you see people walking on water, jumping from tree limbs, flying through frozen water droplets, and changing autumn’s orange to blood red… bullshit right? Wrong. It’s all believable. Why? Because you forget about your world and you become a part of theirs.

Too often in American movie making you see directors and producers trying to mimic the real world, selling characters that remind us of the people in our lives, going through terribly mundane struggles like lover’s quarrels, retirement or the loss of a loved one.

Sooner or later the audience focuses on the plot and the tragedy and loses track of the characters. At this point, the story dies and fades into a category of film. The ending is only 1 of 3 possibilities, the main character lives, and he gets the hot chick while fighting bad guys who can’t shoot, right?

Big deal.

And what of meaning? What about virtues, morality, justice, the greater good, loyalty, honor, purity and heart? They fall between the cracks of a billion dollar budget and an industry whose outward energy ironically erases the very emotions it tries to induce with quality ‘acting’.

So when a film like this comes along – something original – something with real characters that aren’t so real that they are predictable or mundane – I have to appreciate it. I look, listen, imagine, and for a moment, I forget my world and become a part of theirs.

And maybe, just maybe, I learn from their lie what I cannot from my own.

You can learn from fiction what you cannot learn from truth.