NOTE: the last paragraph of this review contains spoilers.

Regardless of their actual opinion of the film, most followers of Tim Burton sat through this past summer's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory with the comforting knowledge that a more unadulterated dose of this peculiar filmmaker's imagination was only a few months away. That film, now upon us after many years in gestation, is Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, which in technique is a follow-up to The Nightmare Before Christmas and in style is a pure and beautiful extrapolation of everything that has ever made Burton, and his films, so beloved by so many.

Here is that world of doltish grownups, so bleak and limited in their perspective; and of lonely, awkward dreamers, enchanted with truth, beauty and love but not quite capable of achieving them; and of beautiful ghouls encroaching on that thin protoplasm separating their world from the ours. Here are the full moons, the Victorian skies and German Expressionist angles, the curlicues, the vertical lines, the pale faces, wan mouths and huge, sad eyes. And skeletons. And puppies. And Johnny Depp, and Danny Elfman, and a host of the current Burton players: Albert Finney, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough and the auteur's own bride, Helena Bonham Carter, all channeling themselves into precarious caricatures that shouldn't be able to function in three dimensions (the adults-cum-villains, so obstreperous and stiff; the children and children at heart, so spindly, graceful, barely there, ready to slip from one world to the next) but do nonetheless.

All of these elements, most of which are always present in some form or another in Burton's pictures, are in this film not just aesthetic details; they are the film itself. This is his first conceptual cinematic work since The Nightmare Before Christmas (and before that, Edward Scissorhands); and while he's usually quite adept at making other material his own, there's always something special to be found in these immediately personal projects: a delicious, delirious indulgence in all of his obsession and, more tellingly, a beguiling, childlike naivete. These are the films that first spring to mind when one thinks of his name, even though a work like Ed Wood may, in an artistically mature sense, be better.

Of course, ironically, Burton didn't direct his most identifiable film, The Nightmare Before Christmas - that task was entrusted to Henry Selick, a filmmaker more familiar with the stop motion animation process. In Corpse Bride, although the directing credit is shared between Burton and Mike Johnson, one can assume the division of creativity was the same as it was with Selick: Burton oversaw the translation of his story and characters, while Johnson was more involved with the animation itself. I'm curious as to what exactly Selick and Johnson brought to the table as they interpreted Burton's vision - presumably, there's a great deal of their own input up on the screen - but at the same time, that vision is certainly distinct enough to warrant the inclusion of Burton's name in the titles of both films. Here's a filmmaker for whom the collaborative process of filmmaking is a given - he's never written the script for a single one of his films, for example - who nonetheless, by sheer singularity of imagination, has become an auteur. The only collaborators he hasn't consistently overshadowed have been Depp and Elfman.

All three are in concert in Corpse Bride, whose plot is succinctly described by one character as "a tragic tale of romance, passion and a murder most foul." This is a fable, a fairy tale; while it's ostensibly an original work, it has a familiarity to it that works well in its favor. The screenplay by John August, Pamela Pettler and Caroline Thompson is simplicity in itself, to the point that it's practically effervescent; it is set in a perfectly encapsulated universe in which no extra exposition or padding is necessary (the villain, a nasty suitor played by Richard E. Grant, is wisely left to scheme in the background for most of the film); unlike his work for Nightmare; Elfman's musical numbers are, for the most part, extensions of the score, rather than set pieces; there's not a single obstruction in the narrative's path, and indeed, so economical and familiar is the manner of storytelling that the film is scarcely over an hour in length.

Economy is something of a necessity when working in stop-motion, of course, and the quality of the form on display here is breathtaking in its complexity and almost inexplicable grace; it is an extreme extension of the handmade, physical sort of craftsmanship Burton so loves (he's never seemed comfortable with computer generated effects). There's an inherent understanding that the execution of CGI or cell animation doesn't involve defeating the laws of physics; the technical means that must have gone into a film like this, on the other hand, are awe-inspiring to consider. And it must be satisfying for Burton, too, to see these characters adhere so perfectly to his original concepts; he's always used his own artwork to convey his ideas for his film, and here his sketchbook has very literally been brought to life.

I mentioned that the animation is awe-inspiring; so too is the Corpse Bride herself, who, despite her state of decay (it is an important part of Burton's aesthetic that she be a corpse, proper, and not a ghost), is an overwhelmingly alluring heroine. Wrapped in swirls of tattered lace and gauze, forever forlorn after being spurned (fatally, in this case) by her true love, she's a like a more becoming version of Dickens' Ms. Havisham. As voiced by Bohnam Carter, her chemistry with Depp's Victor Van Dort is so strong - particularly in the scene where they engage in a piano duet - that the film's sole disappointment is in the denouement, when they don't end up together. It's not a mistake on the filmmaker's part, and the story ends as it should, but it's a variation on the old Beauty And The Beast paradox; just as there's always a sense of frustration when the beast we've grown to love transforms into a rather boring prince, the vision of the afterlife Burton has created is - as always - so alluring that one can't help but wish that whole 'till death do us part' thing didn't get in the way of this utterly enchanting romance.