The spirit of adventure.
Jun. 14th, 2009 21:10![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyI saw the new Pixar film Up last night. What a wonderful movie.
It was a magical film, but aside from its sheer inventiveness, I think what I liked best was how the movie doesn't condescend to its characters or to its audience, and particularly not to Carl. I cried twice during this movie, both times when Carl recalls his beloved wife Ellie (the initial sequence without dialogue is utterly brilliant cinema)--their relationship, and every other relationship in the movie, is portrayed with a realistic sympathy that is very rare in my experience these days--except, perhaps, in Miyazaki movies, and of course Pixar venerate Miyazaki above all other animated filmmakers (and rightly so!). I think of all the Pixar movies I've seen, this one probably comes closest to capturing some of the same spirit that animates his films: I heard on Fresh Air the director saying that they tried to emulate how sequences in Myazaki movies grow out of characters themselves, rather than shoehorning characters into standard plots, and I think Up succeeded in that attempt brilliantly. There's also at least a little bit of The Wizard of Oz in the movie, of course, but with the twist this time that it's a Wicked Wizard (with talking dogs instead of flying monkeys), which the filmmakers signaled with the thunderstorm sequence--at least some of the kids around me got it, so clearly they communicated that well, too (though I'm not sure how many kids caught the obligatory Star Wars reference. give them a few years). The film truly is magical; I was as enthralled as any of the children around me.
It was a magical film, but aside from its sheer inventiveness, I think what I liked best was how the movie doesn't condescend to its characters or to its audience, and particularly not to Carl. I cried twice during this movie, both times when Carl recalls his beloved wife Ellie (the initial sequence without dialogue is utterly brilliant cinema)--their relationship, and every other relationship in the movie, is portrayed with a realistic sympathy that is very rare in my experience these days--except, perhaps, in Miyazaki movies, and of course Pixar venerate Miyazaki above all other animated filmmakers (and rightly so!). I think of all the Pixar movies I've seen, this one probably comes closest to capturing some of the same spirit that animates his films: I heard on Fresh Air the director saying that they tried to emulate how sequences in Myazaki movies grow out of characters themselves, rather than shoehorning characters into standard plots, and I think Up succeeded in that attempt brilliantly. There's also at least a little bit of The Wizard of Oz in the movie, of course, but with the twist this time that it's a Wicked Wizard (with talking dogs instead of flying monkeys), which the filmmakers signaled with the thunderstorm sequence--at least some of the kids around me got it, so clearly they communicated that well, too (though I'm not sure how many kids caught the obligatory Star Wars reference. give them a few years). The film truly is magical; I was as enthralled as any of the children around me.