I don't know how Pixar does it, but they pulled it off. they made another movie that's visually stunning and emotionally moving at the same time. When studios produce big-budget flicks with fantastic effects, they tend to forego the story, thinking the audience, who in their books must be composed of complete morons, will be so distracted by all the colors and glitz and awesomeness that we'll forgive them for one -dimensional characters and cliched stories.
But not Pixar.
Up is oviously marketed towards kids. But it knows perfectly well that kids do not equal idiots, thus it delivers a story that's smart and witty. The audience, made up mostly of kids, is made to deal with loss, death and sadness. In the first 10 minutes of the movie, we see how happy Ellie and Carl are (his sequence barely has any dialogue, which goes to show the strength of this movie's visuals that it manages to move the audience to feel Carl's pain later on). They meet, they fall in love, they dream together. Then Ellie dies and Carl is 78 years old. He is alone and he is being thrown out of his house.
Carl no longer smiles. He is bitter. He longs for his dead wife.
So he attaches a gazillion balloons to his house and flies off to South America to fulfill's Ellie's dreams. By doing so, he hopes to be closer to her. Then he realizes that he's taken Russel , the fat boy scout, by mistake and mayhem ensues. This story looks ridiculous on paper. For the rest of the movie, Carl has his house attached to his arms with a string as it floats up in the air. Then there are the talking dogs, a giant bird.
But on-screen, it all comes together. It all makes perfect sense. And in the end, we have a better understanding of how death isn't necessarily the end, how adventures come in many different forms, how friendships come from the most unexpected places and situation.
I give Up an A, no doubt.
No comments:
Post a Comment