Week Of June 18, 2007 - Mon / Wed / Fri

June 18 , 2007

Rat Is The New Penguin

Ratatouille is not only the best animated film of this year and the best animated film to land in American theaters since Spirited Away, it is the best work of Brad Bird's already legendary career, and the best American film of 2007 to date.  If that is not enough, there are only a couple of films due this summer that have any hope of matching this film for quality.

Now ... with all that hyperbole, what is truly remarkable about Bird's next great step is its subtlety. 

Bird has done with a mainstream American animated film what we come to look for from European animators like Sylvain Chomet.   Of course, while Bird has created a similar sense of artistry, personal voice, and intimacy as the French, he has made his film much more accessible to a traditional mainstream audience. 

Trying to tell the story makes it sound like less than it is.  A rat has a taste for the finer things in life and learns how to cook by observing, combined with a natural skill and an amazing sense of smell.  He finds his way to fulfill his rat dream by Cyrano-ing a busboy who really can't cook, but has a great big heart.  How can a rat make it in a high-profile kitchen? 

But it is so much more than that.  It is, for starters, one of the great foodie movies ever made.  Get reservations for a really good restaurant for after this film because you will want to taste something fresh and rich and delicious as you head out of the theater, a big smile on your face.  (We headed to A/O/C, a terrific Cali-tapas/wine bar here in Los Angeles, after the screening and it couldn't have been a better choice.) 

The philosophy that is repeated in Ratatouille is, "Anyone Can Cook."  It is an odd balance to the classic line from The Incredibles, "When everyone's Super... no one will be."  The Incredibles was about, in part, the mundane nature of having all that power and no good way to use it.  Ratatouille is, again in part, about finding excitement in the passion of those who seem to be average.

The family of our rat hero, Remy, is constantly telling him to be more like they are, to accept his place, and to enjoy life as they do.  But he wants something else and is willing to put himself out to do the work to make it happen.  And when he is lost in the magic of that work, he isn't lonely, he isn't worried, and he isn't a rat in any way ... except physically. 

Another major theme is not judging a book (or anything else) by its cover.  I don't want to give any of the delicious plot points or story turns away.  But Bird, in his apparently infinite generosity, somehow finds something to love about almost everyone and everything with almost every point of view.  As an artist, he understands and embodies the idea that everyone acts in their own interest and that is not an inherently bad thing, although it may chafe against the interests of others. 

But it is more than the themes that make this film so special.  Bird plays with the form in ways we never see in American animation either.  There is a manifestation of the experience of smell that is most reminiscent to me of another breakthrough film, Walt Disney's masterwork, Fantasia.  He works in long form with mime techniques.  And he takes is time with the cooking sequences, turning them into wonderful jazzy pastiches. 

You won't see a less predictable film this year.  (This is the part where someone out there explains how they predicted something in the third act ... spoil sport!)  But the weaving nature of the narrative and the philosophical bent of the writing keeps veering towards the expected ... and then swerves off somewhere completely unexpected.  Just like real life.  It is the consistency of this inconsistency, the sense that even the silliest moments will pay off in some honest way, or that a character will openly acknowledge just how close to the edge they have come, that grabs you. 

Bird is a character himself.  Besides the now traditional display of concept art in the credits, he has a tag at the very end of the film extolling the virtues of "real" animation, free of motion capture.  (It's also funny to think about what 2D animators might think of Bird working in CG ... but no one in the modern game has tipped the hat more often or more lovingly than Bird to the work of the past.)  He also seems to credit everyone at Pixar, a tacit acknowledgement that it takes a village to make a movie, whether craft services or delivery people.

Then there is the killer Michael Giacchino score, which is his most complex work to date, mixing up what seems like a half dozen major themes.  While the score of The Incredibles (which should have won the Oscar that year) is all part of a whole, here Giacchino splashes together a wide array of ideas and musical references, not unlike Remy making a soup that will knock you out with one whiff.  And like Bird, every time you think you are about to head over the cliff with something"too French" or "too cute," Giacchino brings you right back to something surprising and yet comfortable.

The only question about Ratatouille is whether it will be a great commercial success.  It is a sophisticated film and one wonders, even with talking rats, whether smaller children will be amused long enough not to kick the seats.  Yet it's another wonderful step forward by Pixar, which as a company has not only been very successful, but willing to push the envelope.  I still feel the height of what that company has done is Finding Nemo, which somehow reached beyond simply storytelling, with that magical sound of water, to a deeper place in kids and adults alike.  It was hypnotizing and iconic and near perfect. 

In a different way, Ratatouille is another major revelation.  It is the first great American animation for adults first.  Take your date, take your parent, take your friends ... this is not your little brother's animated movie. 

E Me.

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