Review: Ratatouille

When Brad Bird, adorably pic­tured left, burst onto the scene as an untouch­able (American) ani­ma­tion guru with “The Incredibles” in 2004, we all hoped he wouldn’t be a one-hit wun­derkind. Of course, that’d be a fool­ish assump­tion given his exten­sive back­ground and impor­tant role in the his­tory of American ani­ma­tion prior to the Disney Pixar smash. After all, besides mak­ing the some­what seen “Iron Giant”, this guy was con­sul­tant and direc­tor on “The Simpsons”, the good Simpsons that is. As well as a strong influ­ence on The Critic and King of the Hill, show of the other ani­ma­tion king, Mike Judge. As far as ani­ma­tion the­ory goes, no one knows it bet­ter than Brad Bird, and his aspi­ra­tions for the art form are beyond what many peo­ple can con­ceive. Find some of his writ­ings about adults warm­ing up to a Bogart noir flick with a light­hearted car­toon, and you’ll see how strongly he believes in this side­lined art.

Anyway, screw our friends at the Academy for cre­at­ing the Best Animated Feature award (adorably pic­tured left), for there wiill prob­a­bly never be another ani­mated fea­ture up for Best Picture, leav­ing “Beauty and the Beast” perched atop that lone moun­tain of glory. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if that award didn’t exist, “The Incredibles” would have been up for top honor. I feel just as strongly about “Ratatouille”.

The film opens with bright col­ors in the French coun­try­side, but wastes no time tak­ing us into the dark world of rat-life. The first thing we hear from this beau­ti­ful farm­house: a gun­shot. And not a funny “car­toon­ish” effect either. the scene was rem­i­nis­cent of the cen­tral crime in “Capote” and there is no expla­na­tion imme­di­ately whether or not some­one is dead. Even if this doom-ridden moment is fleet­ing, we are imme­di­ately told that despite the three dimen­sional palace in the begin­ning, this ain’t yo’ aver­age Disney flick. We’re in Bird-land now. I’ll quote A.O. Scott’s sur­pris­ing review of the film:

“Written and directed by Brad Bird and dis­play­ing the usual metic­u­lous­ness asso­ci­ated with the Pixar brand, “Ratatouille” is a nearly flaw­less piece of pop­u­lar art, as well as one of the most per­sua­sive por­traits of an artist ever com­mit­ted to film. It pro­vides the kind of deep, trans­port­ing plea­sure, at once sim­ple and sophis­ti­cated, that movies at their best have always promised.“

Mr. Scott is some­one I nearly almost agree with, except of course in his dis­dain for many of the more pop­u­lar films out there. He is so care­ful in his assessment’s cin­ema, and will often leave his thoughts rather open ended to the reader, which is why I was thor­oughly sur­prised to see such a sweep­ing praise for a sum­mer block­buster. It is this review that made me recon­sider what I think I know about this film.

He is right. The story is not only com­pelling and tight, but it also is advanced through the cho­sen form, ani­ma­tion. This could not be a live action film and get its points across as well as it does. For that mat­ter, the ani­ma­tion is enhanced by over­tones of our real world. You’ll not how impor­tant not only the cam­era is to the story, but the “cam­era oper­a­tor”. And of course our “gaffer”. The visual story is infused with real world devices one can­not find within the soft­ware required to cre­ate a 3D film. Most notably, the steadicam. Watch closely and you will see the motion is not track­ing the char­ac­ters but rather the path of an iin­de­pently think­ing cam­era op. Of course, it’s all con­crete 1s and 0s in actu­al­ity, but the care taken to give us more than we are used to in ani­ma­tion.

Go back and watch any­thing ani­mated you can think of, espe­cially any­thing made for TV. Watch adult swim (one of the most cre­ative block of pro­gram­ming out there) for an evening and you will find a ster­ile world in which the script is a god, and all things point to what the writer demands. Who ever is talk­ing and what they are doing or hear­ing is all that can be heard more often than not. But not in our Parisian kitchen. The sound mix is glo­ri­ously nuanced with all kinds of real world effects, as well as those sound effects we can only call the stuff of car­toons. The imple­men­ta­tion of such devices is just as genius as the care taken to divide lan­guages among the char­ac­ters (mice speak eng­lish to each other, but peo­ple can’t under­stand what they say), a flaw that can be found in almost every American film tak­ing place abroad (see WWII films).

There are thou­sands to thank for this gem of a film, as you will find if you wait through the lengthy cred­its. But still, there is that one odd man out, the adden­dum to the Pixar agenda, and the man who has brought the con­cept of writer/director to the drawn image (as well as cin­e­matog­ra­pher and light­ing super­vi­sor). We have not seen the last of Mr. Bird, and we will not see his best work for some time to come. But thank good­ness for him. As long as he can make films that appeal to all four quad­rants, Hollywood will never drop him.

So what’s next. You’d never believe it, but an adap­ta­tion of the book “1906”. Here’s from the back cover:

“Every dis­as­ter has a back­story, none more thrilling than this one. Set dur­ing the great San Francisco earth­quake and fire, this page-turning tale of polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion, vendet­tas, romance, res­cue— and mur­der— is based on recently uncov­ered facts that for­ever change our under­stand­ing of what really hap­pened. Told by a feisty young reporter, Annalisa Passarelli, the novel paints a vivid pic­ture of the Victorian-era city, from the man­sions of Nob Hill to the under­belly of the Barbary Coast to the arrival of tenor Enrico Caruso and the Metropolitan Opera. Central to the story is the ongo­ing bat­tle— fought even as the city burns— that pits incom­pe­tent and unscrupu­lous politi­cians against a coali­tion of hon­est police offi­cers, news­pa­per edi­tors, cit­i­zens, and a lone fed­eral pros­e­cu­tor. With the appeal and tex­ture of “The Alienist,” “Carter Beats the Devil,” and the nov­els of E. L. Doctrow, James Dalessandro weaves unfor­get­table char­ac­ters and actual events into a com­pelling epic.“

He’s never made a film just for kids. Now he’ll show us all his chops in a live action film. Best Picture/Director on their from a fas­cist acad­emy that can’t see tal­ent sans flesh?