Mountain FogUP IN 3D: PIXAR'S GOLDEN RUN CONTINUES
September 10th 2009 08:47
South American odd couple: Russell (Jordan Nagai) and Carl (Ed Asner) looking for adventure south of the equator.
For almost 15 years Pixar have been on a golden run. Since the release of Toy Story in 1995 the animation studio has been an out of control road train, their artistic nerve and verve seemingly unstoppable (despite the slight fender bender that was Cars).
It’s at the point where you’re just waiting for them to drop the ball. There was the ever so slightly weak Ratatouille of 2007, but any faults it had were wiped away last year with Wall-E, a sublime piece of visual storytelling.
Now there’s Up, and with Wall-E still popcorn fresh in the memory, Pixar needed to truly hit the mark with their latest feature. Thankfully, that’s exactly what they’ve done, producing one of the finest films of the year so far.
As is typical of Pixar, the setup is precisely simple. To honour the memory of his dearly departed adventure-loving wife, septuagenarian Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner) sets out on the journey they never experienced together: hitching thousands of helium balloons to his house, Carl intends to fly to Paradise Falls, a remote and beautiful place deep in the Amazon.
Unfortunately for Carl, an annoyingly helpful wilderness scout, Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai), happens to be on the senior citizen’s porch right when the house takes off. Russell has been desperately offering his assistance to Carl, because if he can help a old person he'll be able to earn the final badge he needs to become a senior wilderness scout, while also gaining his dad's elusive attention. Despite Carl’s best efforts to earlier get rid of Russell it now looks like the young boy is along for the ride, and the odd couple sets off together to find the mystical Paradise Falls.
It’s elegant stuff as always from Pixar, and as Carl and Russell’s journey takes in all sorts of crazy misadventures it marks how closely the studio sticks to the old Hollywood ‘dream factory’ tradition. It’s so effective that screenwriter/director Pete Docter and screenwriter/co-director Bob Peterson can be forgiven for a slightly weak third act, and to be fair you probably won’t notice, you’ll be laughing that hard.
Visually, the film is another step in Pixar’s animated evolution, and while the artistry is very clearly on display in the film’s grandiose moments – particularly if you’re lucky enough to see it in 3D – it illustrates itself best in the smaller details, like the kaleidoscope of colours created by the helium balloons on the faces of fascinated bystanders, or the sepia-toned pictures in Carl’s photo book.
Carl's version of a single-fingered salute to progress is an impressive one indeed.
The film’s implementation of 3D is cannily done too. Much like the recent Beowulf, Pixar have taken the subtle route, using the technique to highlight depth and height, rather than just throwing random objects at the audience. It’s there to improve the immersion, although you may need to go at a quiet time lest you end up like I did, next to the old ladies whose hoots and hollers suggested they’d never managed to catch a Jaws 3D back in the 80s.
The visuals are backed up by some stunning sound design, an often-unsung aspect of Pixar’s filmmaking. Every pop, squeak and buzz is impeccably timed and so much of the humour in Up comes from these seemingly incidental noises. It provides a clear underlining of the visual storytelling that is taking place onscreen.
And that’s really Pixar’s strength: the studio knows how to construct a visual story. It doesn’t mean their films are simple – they’re often overflowing with theme and subtext – but where other filmmakers might roll out clunky one-liners or revert to weighty exposition, Pixar takes the visual route. Up carries with it a strong subtext about society’s devaluation of the aged and some heady themes regarding the importance of embracing new beginnings, but it’s all conveyed in a visual manner.
It serves to underline the skill of this studio. There’s something old school about Pixar, an effortless understanding of what it takes to spin a good story that harks back to the golden era of Hollywood. They haven’t dropped the ball with Up, and with any luck they won’t do so for some time yet.
Check out the trailer for Up below:
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Comment by Lara M
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Wilson - Pomeraz on At the Movies really nailed it when she commented that Pixar have a nice habit of mixing the fantastical with the real. It's very true and particularly so here - glad you enjoyed it as much as I did! Thanks for reading.
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That dog cracked me up
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