Last weekend we went to see the exhibition Tim Burton : the labyrinth at La Villette.

My opinion on the exhibition

The concept of the exhibition is to leave the tour to fate. Each room has several doors, and visitors must choose one of them. You push the door and enter the next room. It’s impossible to go back. It’s not possible to see all the rooms, but you’ll at least pass through all those of Tim Burton’s best-known films, such as The Night Before Christmas and Alice in Wonderland.

I’ll get rid of the big negative right away: the length of the exhibition. It took us 30 minutes to complete the tour, having carefully taken the time to look at all the drawings and videos, which for the price of the ticket is a bit brief. We left it entirely to chance, as my daughter wanted to play along. Other visitors opened the doors to see what was behind and chose the room they liked best. I can understand why they did this, as the ticket price is very high.

I’ve seen people complain online that they were out in 15 minutes but I find that very exaggerated and I think some people didn’t take the time to look at everything. Most visitors only looked at the sculptures and completely skipped the drawings and videos, even though they were original Tim Burton drawings and never-before-seen videos.

The tour

The sets are truly magnificent, and the entrance immediately sets the atmosphere for Tim Burton’s films. I won’t show you the drawings and videos because it was forbidden to take photos of them.

Once through the curtain, a person greets visitors and picks a door at random. Actually, it’s not really fate that decides this first door, as it tells us what’s behind it. One of the doors leads to the Batman room. So that’s the one we chose to start with.

For the other doors, we left it to chance. We’ve seen a lot of well-known films, like Alice in Wonderland.

The Corpse Bride sculptures were very beautiful. Not all of them were so well done, as you’ll see in other photos.

We passed through a room telling the very sad story of an oyster boy.

Less convincing sculptures included Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice.

I was disappointed by the video animations. There were very few. The most “impressive” was the one with cockroaches and other insects in the Beetlejuice room, haha.

We then saw Mars Attack, Frankenweenie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Night before Christmas and another room of Alice in Wonderland with the Mad Hatter.

The Oompas-Loompas were very nice.

Obviously, this was my favorite room.

This was the last room we saw. The Mad Hatter’s face wasn’t very well done.

Overall, we enjoyed the exhibition, even if it was a little short and therefore very expensive for the duration of the experience. The visit was pleasant, as the rooms weren’t overcrowded and we were able to get a good look at the works. The exhibition closes on August 19.

Have you seen the exhibition? What did you think of it? The exhibition made us want to see all Tim Burton’s films again.

See you soon!