Look Out, Pixar, Here Comes ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ (The New York Times)

January 12, 2010

By BROOKS BARNES

LOS ANGELES — Figuring out which film will win the Academy Award for best animated feature is usually the easiest part of filling out a ballot for your Oscar pool. Go down the list of nominees — often only three, because so few make the cut — and find the one produced by Pixar. Circle it.

But this year, unexpectedly, animation is becoming a hotly contested race.

The biggest reason is “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Wes Anderson’s quirky adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel. The film, from 20th Century Fox and the producer Scott Rudin, is soaking up a surprising amount of awards attention.

“Up,” Pixar’s 3-D flying-house adventure, dominated the multiplexes last May and seemed to have the animation Oscar sewn up as recently as a few weeks ago. And it’s still the front-runner. The movie industry cooed that “Up,” Pixar’s sophisticated 10th feature, was another artistic triumph. Critics agreed, with review-aggregation Web sites suggesting that the studio’s campaign slogan for the film — “The Best Reviewed Film of the Year” — was only a (very) slight exaggeration.

Then a fox snuck into Pixar’s henhouse.

“Fantastic Mr. Fox,” which features the vocal talents of George Clooney and Meryl Streep in a story about a dapper family man who can’t resist stealing chickens and cider, arrived in wide release on Nov. 25. Despite stratospheric reviews, the holiday rush and a soft box office performance — it cost just under $40 million to produce and sold $20 million in tickets —made an Oscar run seem like a long shot.

But “Up,” which has been estimated to cost $175 million and cruised to a $293 million gross in North America, lost two influential awards to “Fox.”

In a mid-December surprise, both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association named “Fantastic Mr. Fox” the best animated movie of 2009. Similar awards from five other critics’ groups followed. The film is up for a Golden Globe on Sunday, as is “Up.”

“Nobody saw this coming,” said Jerry Beck, the author of 12 books on animation and an operator of the news blog CartoonBrew.com. “The animation in ‘Mr. Fox’ strikes some people as a bit funky, but the film is indisputably a piece of art — something that exhibits a really strong point of view from beginning to end.”

Many critics have been impressed that Mr. Anderson, whose other movies include “The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001) and “Rushmore” (1998) is thriving in a genre entirely new to him. “Fantastic Mr. Fox” was made using stop-motion animation, a painstaking process involving handmade models.

“It’s as if Wes finally found the perfect style through which to channel all of his obsessions,” said Scott Foundas, a former film critic for LA Weekly and now an associate programmer at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. “You can really see the fingerprints.”

The producers of “Fantastic Mr. Fox” say they are just happy that there appears to be room at the awards podium for different styles of animation. “Up” was computer generated, or CG, in industry shorthand. Yet another contender, “The Princess and the Frog,” from Walt Disney Pictures, is a hand-drawn throwback to the heyday of the genre.

“ ‘Up’ is a brilliant movie, but the great thing that this year has shown us is that animation is more than just CG and 3-D,” Mr. Rudin said. With Mr. Anderson’s film, he added, “You feel like you’re being dropped into this perfect, handcrafted dollhouse, except that the dolls are George Clooney and Meryl Streep.”

The Oscar race is just hitting its stride, of course. Nominations will be announced on Feb. 2 and the awards given on March 7. In only the second time since the animated feature category was created in 2001, there will be five nominees. In recent years there have been only three. Rules state that a minimum of 16 films must be submitted to warrant five slots.

And “Up,” directed by Pete Docter, remains very much the lead contender for the best animated feature Oscar, a prize Pixar has won four times. “Up” has so far taken top animated honors from 14 awards groups, including the National Board of Review. It is expected to do well at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards on Friday.

Many awards strategists consider “Up” a strong candidate for a best picture nomination, especially with that field expanded to 10 nominees this year. No animated movie has ever won in that category, and only one, “Beauty and the Beast,” has been nominated.

A spokesman for “Up” had no comment. An executive at Disney, which owns Pixar, said there were no concerns about competition from “Fantastic Mr. Fox” in the animation category, partly because the Los Angeles and New York critics’ groups have weakened as indicators. “It’s not even a contest,” said the executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not have clearance to speak publicly.

Even so, Disney and Pixar may have their hands full. Aside from the unexpected competition from “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” there is “Ponyo,” an odd but haunting film from Hayao Miyazaki, the Japanese anime master whose “Spirited Away” won in 2002. Other prominent contenders are Universal’s “Coraline” and Sony’s “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.”

There is a history of the academy recognizing the small and arty, awarding the top animation prize in 2005 to the stop-motion “Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit.” And the little-engine-that-could factor is against Pixar. “To an extent ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ is benefitting from being the underdog,” Mr. Foundas said. Liccy Dahl, Roald Dahl’s widow, said she was tickled that “Fantastic Mr. Fox” was succeeding on the awards trail. Mr. Anderson spent three weeks at her home in Buckinghamshire, England, working on the script, incorporating details like the kitchen floor and lamp shades into the production design.

“What I love about the film is the sense of humor — it’s so Wes Anderson,” she said.

A demure Mr. Anderson credited his creative team in a telephone interview, saying he was thrilled about the attention but that he never gave much thought to how the animation could serve his style.

“I was always just thinking about Roald Dahl,” he said. “How do we make this movie seem like it’s happening inside his imagination?”

A heartfelt film within a film in 'Up' (Los Angeles Times)

The filmmakers' decision to include a four-minute montage tracing the back story of Carl Fredricksen and his wife was a bold stroke that enriched the entire movie.

By John Horn

It's among the most memorable -- and moving -- sequences in Pixar's new animated movie "Up": a four-minute, dialogue-free montage early in the film that traces the entire relationship between Carl Fredricksen and his wife, Ellie.

In encapsulating the couple's life together, the flashback sequence -- which Times film critic Kenneth Turan called "a small gem that will stay with you for a lifetime" -- includes a few issues rarely raised in a movie aimed at families, including a miscarriage, the failing health of the elderly, even death and bereavement.

"It's one of the things I am most proud of in the film," says "Up" director Pete Docter.

Docter and his "Up" collaborators always wanted to include the couple's back story. The sequence needed to answer critical narrative questions: Why would Carl Fredricksen, the grumpy old man voiced by actor Ed Asner, attach balloons to his house and float away if he might be leaving children behind? Why had the couple never made it to Paradise Falls? What was so critical about the homemade badge Carl pins on the Junior Wilderness Explorer, Russell? What little pleasures might constitute life's biggest moments?

In its earliest iteration, the montage looked as if it would last 20 minutes.

"You start with a ton of stuff and you pare down," Docter says. "And we took out everything that wasn't essential."

The decision to present the scene without the characters' talking came a bit later (The montage does include an orchestral score by composer Michael Giacchino).

In researching the film's story, Docter, co-director and co-screenwriter Bob Peterson and producer Jonas Rivera looked at a number of Super-8 film reels from family archives and often found that the silent images were more powerful because of what wasn't said.

"We're always looking in animation to do things without dialogue, to turn the sound off and still know what's going on," Peterson says.

Adds Docter: "It kind of comes to life in your own head more. For a long time, we had sound effects throughout the whole sequence, to sell certain things like the jars breaking and the tire popping. And in the final mix, we just took them all out and I think it works even better.

If you watch the scene closely, you also will notice that the color palette shifts to reflect the nature of Carl and Ellie's relationship. When they are young, the shades are sepia-toned, suggesting something from the 1930s. In the prime of their lives, the colors are richer -- vibrant greens and blues. "Hopefully it's not something the audience is even conscious of," Docter says.

The filmmakers wrestled with removing Ellie's miscarriage but felt the scene -- and the rest of the movie -- suffered without it.

"It's a pretty strong thing to see," Peterson says. "And we tried taking it out. But it didn't feel as textured."

"Up", de Pete Docter (The New York Times)

By Manohla Dargis

In its opening stretch the new Pixar movie “Up” flies high, borne aloft by a sense of creative flight and a flawlessly realized love story. Its on-screen and unlikely escape artist is Carl Fredricksen, a widower and former balloon salesman with a square head and a round nose that looks ready for honking. Voiced with appreciable impatience by Ed Asner, Carl isn’t your typical American animated hero. He’s 78, for starters, and the years have taken their toll on his lugubrious body and spirit, both of which seem solidly tethered to the ground. Even the two corners of his mouth point straight down. It’s as if he were sagging into the earth.

Eventually a bouquet of balloons sends Carl and his house soaring into the sky, where they go up, up and away and off to an adventure in South America with a portly child, some talking (and snarling and gourmet-cooking) dogs and an unexpected villain. Though the initial images of flight are wonderfully rendered — the house shudders and creaks and splinters and groans as it’s ripped from its foundation by the balloons — the movie remains bound by convention, despite even its modest 3-D depth. This has become the Pixar way. Passages of glorious imagination are invariably matched by stock characters and banal story choices, as each new movie becomes another manifestation of the movie-industry divide between art and the bottom line.

In “Up” that divide is evident between the early scenes, which tell Carl’s story with extraordinary tenderness and brilliant narrative economy, and the later scenes of him as a geriatric action hero. The movie opens with the young Carl enthusing over black-and-white newsreel images of his hero, a world-famous aviator and explorer, Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer). Shortly thereafter, Carl meets Ellie, a plucky, would-be adventurer who, a few edits later, becomes his beloved wife, an adult relationship that the director Pete Docter brilliantly compresses into some four wordless minutes during which the couple dream together, face crushing disappointment and grow happily old side by side. Like the opener of “Wall-E” and the critic’s Proustian reminiscence of childhood in “Ratatouille,” this is filmmaking at its purest.

The absence of words suggests that Mr. Docter and the co-director Bob Peterson, with whom he wrote the screenplay, are looking back to the silent era, as Andrew Stanton did with the Chaplinesque start to “Wall-E.” Even so, partly because “Up” includes a newsreel interlude, its marriage sequence also brings to mind the breakfast table in “Citizen Kane.” In this justly famous (talking) montage, Orson Welles shows the collapse of a marriage over a number of years through a series of images of Kane and his first wife seated across from each other at breakfast, another portrait of a marriage in miniature. As in their finest work, the Pixar filmmakers have created thrilling cinema simply by rifling through its history.

Those thrills begin to peter out after the boy, Russell (Jordan Nagai), inadvertently hitches a ride with Carl, forcing the old man to assume increasingly grandfatherly duties. But before that happens there are glories to savor, notably the scenes of Carl — having decided to head off on the kind of adventure Ellie and he always postponed — taking to the air. When the multihued balloons burst through the top of his wooden house it’s as if a thousand gloriously unfettered thoughts had bloomed above his similarly squared head. Especially lovely is the image of a little girl jumping in giddy delight as the house rises in front of her large picture window, the sunlight through the balloons daubing her room with bright color.

In time Carl and Russell, an irritant whose Botero proportions recall those of the human dirigibles in “Wall-E,” float to South America where they, the house and the movie come down to earth. Though Mr. Docter’s visual imagination shows no signs of strain here — the image of Carl stubbornly pulling his house, now tethered to his torso, could have come out of the illustrated Freud — the story grows progressively more formulaic. And cuter. Carl comes face to face with his childhood hero, Muntz, an eccentric with the dashing looks and frenetic energy of a younger Kirk Douglas. Muntz lives with a legion of talking dogs with which he has been hunting a rare bird whose gaudy plumage echoes the palette of Carl’s balloons.

The talking dogs are certainly a hoot, including the slobbering yellow furball Dug and a squeaky-voiced Doberman, Alpha (both Mr. Peterson), not to mention the dog in the kitchen and the one that pops open the Champagne. And there’s something to be said about the revelation that heroes might not be what you imagined, particularly in a children’s movie and particularly one released by Disney. (Muntz seems partly inspired by Charles Lindbergh at his most heroic and otherwise.) But much like Russell, the little boy with father problems, and much like Dug, the dog with master issues, the story starts to feel ingratiating enough to warrant a kick. O.K., O.K., not a kick, just some gently expressed regret.

“Up” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). A wee bit of gentle action and a climactic fight scene, but nothing inappropriate for any viewer of any age.

UP

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Pete Docter; co-directed by Bob Peterson; written by Mr. Docter and Mr. Peterson based on a story by Mr. Docter, Mr. Peterson and Tom McCarthy; director of photography, camera, Patrick Lin; director of photography, lighting, Jean-Claude Kalache; edited by Kevin Nolting; music by Michael Giacchino; production designer, Ricky Nierva; produced by Jonas Rivera; released by Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.

WITH THE VOICES OF: Ed Asner (Carl Fredricksen), Christopher Plummer (Charles Muntz), Jordan Nagai (Russell), Bob Peterson (Dug/Alpha), Delroy Lindo (Beta), Jerome Ranft (Gamma) and John Ratzenberger (Construction Foreman Tom).

"Up", de Pete Docter (Variety, ScreenDaily)

By TODD MCCARTHY

A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a Walt Disney Pictures presentation of a Pixar Animation Studios production. Produced by Jonas Rivera. Executive producers, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton. Directed by Pete Docter. Co-director, Bob Peterson. Screenplay, Peterson, Docter; story, Docter, Peterson, Tom McCarthy.

Voices:
Carl Fredericksen - Ed Asner
Charles Muntz - Christopher Plummer
Russell - Jordan Nagai
Dug - Bob Peterson
Beta - Delroy Lindo
Gamma - Jerome Ranft
Alpha - Bob Peterson
Construction Foreman Tom - John Ratzenberger


Depending on what you think of "Cars," Pixar makes it either 9½ out of 10 or 10 for 10 with "Up," a captivating odd-couple adventure that becomes funnier and more exciting as it flies along. Tale of an unlikely journey to uncharted geographic and emotional territory by an old codger and a young explorer could easily have been cloying, but instead proves disarming in its deep reserves of narrative imagination and surprise, as well as its poignant thematic balance of dreams deferred and dreams fulfilled. Lack of overtly fantastical elements might endow "Up" with a somewhat lower initial must-see factor than some summer releases. But like all of Pixar's features, this one will enjoy a rewardingly long ride in all venues and formats. Pete Docter's picture has the privilege of being the first animated film to open the Cannes Film Festival, on May 13.

The two leading men are 78 and 8 years old, and the age range of those who will appreciate the picture is even a bit wider than that. Like previous classic films about escape from the mundane, from "The Wizard of Oz" to "Wall-E" and many in between, "Up" is universal in its appeal. At the same time, it may be the most subtle Pixar production to date in its use of color schemes, shapes, proportions, scale, contrast and balance, factors highlighted by the application of 3-D, which will be available at many initial engagements.

The ghost of Chaplin hovered over "Wall-E," and although "Up" is a more talkative film, it also delves back into earlier eras for inspiration. The first thing on view is a mock '30s-style black-and-white Movietone newsreel documenting the exploits of maverick explorer Charles Muntz, who heads back to South America to redeem himself after a giant bird skeleton he presents in the U.S. is denounced as a fraud.

Not long after comes an exquisite interlude that, in less than five minutes, encapsulates the life-long love affair between Carl Fredericksen and his wife Ellie in a manner worthy of even the most poetic of silent-film directors. The two were brought together by their mutual enthusiasm for Muntz, and it remained Ellie's lifelong dream to emulate the adventurer and travel to Paradise Falls in South America.

But life has other plans, and Ellie must settle for a happy life with balloon-seller Carl (voiced by Ed Asner). When she dies, she leaves behind a scrapbook as well as a very grumpy widower, who retreats into self-enforced exile. With heavy-rimmed black glasses, thick white hair and eyebrows, bulbous nose, square jaw and a scrunched body that looks like it's been through a compactor, old Carl resembles a cross between Spencer Tracy and Walter Matthau at the ends of their careers. He wants no company, content to live out his days in the house he shared with Ellie, which becomes surrounded by giant construction projects.

Finally faced with eviction, Carl concocts a plan. In a surprising and brilliantly visual sequence, thousands of colored balloons hatch from behind the house, prying it from its foundation and carrying it skyward; Carl intends to fly it to South America, fulfilling Ellie's dream.

However, he's got an unplanned passenger in the form of Russell (Jordan Nagai), a roly-poly, eager-beaver Junior Wilderness Explorer who's previously tried to enlist the old goat's help to win him a badge. The trip goes uneventfully — no time wasted on navigational challenges — the better to quickly achieve the destination. The arrival is stunningly portrayed, with thick fog clearing to reveal bizarre rock formations atop a mesa adjacent to the falls (designs were inspired by Angel Falls, the world's highest, and the actual tepui mountains around the juncture of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana — the location of Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World"). Carl and Russell quickly come upon the very sort of rare bird Muntz went back to find decades before, a brilliantly plumed, gawky 13-footer they name Kevin.

Kevin's antics throughout are so humorous and beautifully animated they would be at home in a "Looney Tunes" highlights reel, as would a breed of attack dogs commanded by Muntz himself (Christopher Plummer), who sends the canines in search of the elusive bird.

At just 89 minutes, "Up" is unusually short for a Pixar film, and the action climax comes on rapidly. One setpiece features the two old-timers, Carl and the swashbuckling Muntz, going mano a mano aboard the latter's spectacular, zeppelin-like flying ship, and numerous vertigo-producing shots show characters clinging for dear life.

Although the cliffhanger effects are augmented by 3-D projection, never do Docter ("Monsters, Inc.") and co-director Bob Peterson shove anything in the viewer's face just because of its 3-D potential. In fact, the film's overall loveliness presents a conceivable argument in favor of seeing it in 2-D: Even with the strongest possible projector bulbs, the 3-D glasses reduce the image's brightness by 20%. At the very least, the incentive for seeing "Up" in 3-D would seem less powerful than it is for other films.

Despite the sheer volume of incident and action required of any film that includes young kids as a major portion of its target audience, "Up" is an exceptionally refined picture; unlike so many animated films, it's not all about sensory bombardment and volume. As Pixar's process is increasingly analyzed, the more one appreciates the care that goes into the writing. The underlying carpentry here is so strong, it seems it would be hard to go too far wrong in the execution.

Unsurprisingly, no one puts a foot wrong here. Vocal performances, most importantly from Asner, Plummer and nonpro Nagai, exude a warm enthusiasm, and tech specifications could not be better. Michael Giacchino's full-bodied, traditional score is superlative, developing beautiful themes as it sweeps the action along on emotional waves.

Camera (Technicolor and Deluxe prints, 3-D), Patrick Lin; lighting, Jean-Claude Kalache; editor, Kevin Nolting; music, Michael Giacchino; production designer, Ricky Nierva; story supervisor, Ronnie Del Carmen; supervising technical director, Steve May; supervising animator, Scott Clark; sound designer (Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS), Tom Myers; supervising sound editors, Michael Silvers, Myers; re-recording mixers, Michael Semanick, Myers; associate producer, Denise Ream; casting, Kevin Reher, Natalie Lyon. Reviewed at Disney Studios, Burbank, May 6, 2009. (In Cannes Film Festival — opener.) MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 89 MIN.

............................................................................................

By Mike Goodridge (Screendaily)

Dir: Pete Docter, US, 2009. 104mins

The tenth feature film from Pixar Animation Studios – and the first in which flesh-and-blood (non-superhero) humans are the key protagonists – Pete Docter’s Up is a marvel of a movie which will enchant cinemagoers around the world and remain a family favourite for decades to come. A highpoint of ingenuity and storytelling in the Pixar canon and indeed the animated form, this is a fitting opening to this year’s Cannes Film Festival; indeed it will be hard for any other film there to match the storytelling genius and gorgeous 3D imagery which Docter and his team have achieved.

Box office greatness is assured for all Pixar films these days, thanks to the strength of the brand combined with that of its partners at Disney. But, although all have been blockbusters, there’s a wide Pixar range: last year’s Wall-E, widely, for example, took $222.8m in the domestic market and $311m in international, but even that $535m total was $330m less than Finding Nemo in 2003. Quite where Up will fall in the range is anybody’s guess, although its strong emotional connection to audiences will likely drive it up into the higher end of the studio’s grossing scale.

Although there are plenty of animated films still to come this year — Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox and Walt Disney title The Princess And The Frog among them — Up should be the strongest contender for the animated feature Oscar next March, and could even pitch for consideration in the best picture category as well.

Up has humour and action aplenty to enthrall children, but it should engage adults in equal quantities who will respond to its rich emotional content.

The prologue is a heartrending 10 minutes set in the 1930s, when we meet a young child named Carl Fredricksen who longs for the adventures played out by his hero, real-life explorer Charles Muntz, in exotic locations such as Paradise Falls in South America.

The young Carl makes friends with a feisty girl called Ellie who has a similar longing for adventure. The two form a bond which will see them getting married, trying (and failing) to have a baby and growing old together, until Ellie gets sick and dies. The film essentially begins with the 78-year-old Carl struggling with loneliness after her funeral.

Carl’s grief is exacerbated by the fact that developers are trying to get their hands on his city-centre house and ship him off to a retirement home. When he loses his temper with one of the construction crew, he is served with a court order to pack up and leave.

But on the night before Carl is due to move out of his home, he hatches a plot to pursue the adventure he never had. By inflating thousands of balloons, he lifts the house off its foundations and flies away.

Unbeknown to Carl, also on board is a persistent eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer called Russell who is desperate to do a service for Carl and win his assisting-the-elderly badge. The two of them head off to South America, land in Paradise Falls and begin an adventure which changes their lives and their outlooks.

Superbly voiced by Edward Asner, Carl is a new kind of hero for any animated film: a grumpy old man with rigidly square features — even square ears and square liver spots — and a bad back. His relationship with the neglected but hardy Russell (endearingly voiced by newcomer Nagai) grows slowly and authentically as they encounter various rare birds, packs of talking dogs and an ageing Charles Muntz (voiced by Plummer).

The colours of the film are ravishing and some of the compositions are painterly, while the 3D enhances the images without playing any in-your-face tricks on the audience. Michael Giacchino’s memorable music themes will be rattling around your head for hours after the film is over.

The Pixar canon is so impressive because of its insistence on story. Avoiding distracting star names in the voice cast or contemporary pop culture references, the films are timeless and eminently valuable assets in the Disney library, and they represent a golden era for animation which will go down in film history alongside the early Disney greats such as Snow White and Fantasia. With Toy Story 3 set for release next year and two Pixar films for 2011, one can only expect the consistency of quality to be sustained.

"Up", de Pixar, apertura de Cannes (Variety)

PARIS -- Pixar's 3-D toon, "Up," co-helmed by "Monsters, Inc." director Pete Docter, will open the 62nd Cannes Film Festival.

"Cannes has demonstrated for many years its interest in animation by selecting films from DreamWorks, as well as films that use animation differently like 'Persepolis' and 'Waltz With Bashir,' " said Thierry Fremaux, Cannes Film Festival's delegate general.

"It's audacious to open the festival with an animated film, but we're conscious of our duty : it's by stretching its boundaries that cinema remains universal."

Co-helmed and produced by Bob Peterson, "Up," about a 78-year-old who teams with a wilderness ranger to fight beasts and villains, will be the first toon ever to unspool in 3-D at the opening ceremony.

Recent toon contenders for the Palme d'Or have included "Shrek," "Over the Hedge," "Kung-Fu Panda" and "Waltz With Bashir."

"Up" will bow in the U.S. on May 29.

This year's edition of the Cannes film fest runs May 13-24.

Pixar vs. Dreamworks (Parte 2)

En la excelente nota de Kent Jones en el nuevo número de "Film Comment" (que tiene a "Wall-E" en la tapa), se vuelve sobre la relación entre Pixar y Dreamworks. Lamentablemente el texto no está online (al menos, no en la página oficial, si alguien lo encuentra subido me avisa) y no tengo tiempo ahora de reescribirlo acá, pero me gustaría citarles el párrafo de inicio.

"Por qué las películas de Pixar son tan superiores a los lamentables productos de DreamWorks? De entrada, se puede decir que Pixar hace películas que lucen mejor y menos apresuradas, pero la verdad es que cualquiera de sus ocho películas y numerosos cortos está mejor concebida y es más imaginativa que sus análogos de DreamWorks. Es que John Lasseter tiene un gusto superior? Algo es seguro: no deja que las investigaciones de marketing alteren su proceso artístico".

La nota sigue y expande los conceptos que discutíamos aquí la otra vez. Vean "Wall-E" y después me cuentan.

Una canción de cuna

Mi hijo Tomás era apenas un bebé cuando se estrenó en cines "Toy Story", allá por 1996. La película la tuve luego en video --sí, en VHS, años antes de la reconversión general al DVD-- y Tomás, ya un poco más grande, la pasó una y otra vez en la televisión hasta que, literalmente, la gastó. Así, "Toitori" (o "gudibaz", como también la bautizó) se convirtió en la película que más veces vi en mi vida. Aclaro: no era la única película que Tomás veía centenares de veces, pero sí la única en la que yo lo acompañaba. A veces, durante toda la película. Otras, sólo por algunas escenas.

En ese entonces apenas sabía lo que era Pixar y, siendo sinceros, "Bichos" no me produjo el mismo interés y "Monsters Inc.", si bien me gustó bastante, la olvidé muy rápidamente. En el medio apareció "Toy Story 2", una secuela de esas pocas que pueden considerarse a la altura, o aún mejor, que la original. También repetí la experiencia: poco después nació Joaquín y se hizo adicto a la segunda como Tomás a la primera. Bueno, a ambas en realidad.

Todavía hoy puedo repetir diálogos enteros de ambas películas y recuerdo escenas que me conmueven de sólo pensarlas. Pixar siguió haciendo buenas películas ("Buscando a Nemo" es muy buena, "Los increíbles" tiene grandes momentos aunque la vi doblada a un horrendo argentino y nunca pde recuperarme del todo, y "Cars" me parece, sin ser mala, la más fallida de estas tres), pero mi enganche pasó a ser un poco menor. Tal vez, por el agotamiento de tanta película de animación dando vueltas por el mercado.

Con "Ratatouille" volvió la grandeza. Al verla, sin embargo, sentí que Pixar ya no hacía películas para mis hijos. Las hacía para mí. Ellos salieron un poquito aburridos de la función y no se los notaba demasiado satisfechos. Sin embargo, via DVD, "Ratatouille" se convirtió en otro éxito repetido de tardes de fin de semana. Hoy puedo decir que la película generó que a veces me encuentre con mis hijos mirando el canal Gourmet o preguntándome por los usos del romero...

Ellos todavía no vieron "Wall-E" (calculo que el sábado estaremos allí, para verla en su versión doblada), pero tengo la sensación de que les va a suceder lo mismo que con "Ratatouille". La propuesta estética de la película es tan audaz, tan radical, que seguramente tardarán un tiempo en aprehenderla. La dificultad de "Ratatouille" era el relativo interés que podía despertar su poco infantil tema, pero su edición era rápida y furiosa, y su humor constante y eficaz. "Wall-E", al menos durante su primera mitad --la mejor, una lección de cine, una historia contada a través de miradas, gestos, planos y silencios-- es una distopia oscura, atemorizadora y gris, sólo alivianada por un insecto que bailotea, un musical que los chicos desconocen y objetos "del siglo XX" que seguramente tienen más sentido para los adultos.

No tengo dudas de que la segunda parte --igual de densa y compleja desde lo temático, pero más liviana y convencional desde la realización-- los acercará a la película mucho más. Lo mismo que cada mirada enamorada de los intercambiables binoculares de Wall-E, cada pasito de baile con una tapa de cacerola, y su ternura a prueba de, bueno, del fin del mundo.

Pocas veces el futuro de la Tierra fue mostrado de la manera terrible en el que se ve en "Wall-E". Un planeta abandonado con edificios de basura, polución permanente, completamente deshabitado, infernal. Sólo Wall-E (una criatura aún más enternecedora que E.T.), en su infinita rutina, parece no darse cuenta de lo que está pasando. Cuando llegue Eve ("iiivaa", tal como lo pronuncia en inglés), todo empezará a cambiar. Pero la pareja tampoco la tendrá del todo fácil.

"Wall-E" es una extraña película sobre bebés (unos "movietubbies", si se quiere). Los robotitos balbucean como criaturas de un año, los humanos reubicados en una nave espacial "todoterreno" parecen chiquilines regordetes y caprichosos. Y ese grupito de neohumanos y robots --inocentes, blanqueados, sin memoria ni contexto-- serán los encargados de refundar el mundo. "Wall-E" es "Blade Runner" y "RoboCop" y "El planeta de los simios" y "Alien". Pero es, más que nada, una versión pop de "2001": una elegía para un mundo perdido y una canción de cuna para otro que va a empezar.

¿DreamWorks o Pixar?

Quiero creer que la gente de Pixar no tiene ninguna intención de enviar sus películas al Festival de Cannes mientras que los de DreamWorks --desde la selección de "Shrek" en competencia en adelante-- aceptan gustosos y ofrecen llevar a todo su elenco vocal a subir y bajar por la alfombra roja. También es cierto que muchas películas de Pixar no cuentan con "celebridades" haciendo las voces sino que confían más en el producto en sí y no tanto en sus referencias culturales inmediatas. Y eso no les rinde tanto a los fotógrafos.

De otra manera, no se explica cómo "Kung Fu Panda" llega a Cannes mientras que "Wall-E", una película infinitamente superior, casi una obra maestra del género, pasa de largo. El filme animado de DreamWorks es apenas pasable, mientras que "Wall-E" tiene momentos decididamente memorables, y de hecho podría haber estado en competencia pasándole el trapo a varios.

¿No hay onda entre Cannes y Disney? ¿O habrá que pensar que Thierry Fremaux y compañía tienen un gusto bastante discutible en cuanto a animación? Si se juzga por la película israelí "Waltz with Bashir" --en competencia este año-- o por "Persepolis" --que hizo lo mismo el año pasado-- habrá que suponer que no es una cuestión de mal gusto ni nada por el estilo.

Tendrá que ver, entiendo, con decisiones comerciales de Disney/Pixar. Si mal no recuerdo, "Ratatouille" tampoco estuvo en Cannes 2007. Y no sólo era una gran película, sino que tenía un innegable gancho para Francia. Así que no me queda otra que inclinarme por la opción comercial.

De cualquier manera, tampoco importa demasiado. Hablar de Cannes no es otra cosa que una excusa para expresar mi fascinación con "Wall-E", con Pixar y con la Edad de Oro de la Animación que nos están brindando los muchachos de John Lassiter hace ya varios años. ¿Soy yo el único que cree esto? ¿O hay fanáticos de "Shrek 2" ocultos por ahí que desprecian "Nemo", "Los increíbles" y "Ratatouille"? Para mi, no hay disputa. Pixar gana por robo, todos los rounds.