After five consecutive hits (I know that I didn't post about A Bug's Life, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't see it), along came a movie that, in my opinion, took everything to a whole new level. The previews for The Incredibles intrigued me, but didn't eve scratch the surface of what was to come. I was a freshman in college when the movie was released, and my interest in complex stories was truly starting to take off (I had started watching Buffy and Angel only a little over a year previously, and before those shows, I mostly watched lame sitcoms). With this film, Brad Bird, a longtime writer for The Simpsons, finally got the respect and attention he deserved from the mainstream public. Five years prior to The Incredibles, Bird made a movie called The Iron Giant that was appreciated by critics, but no one else. Now, with the Pixar powerhouse to give his story life, beauty, and financial backing, Bird's tale of the everyday lives of a superhero family was able to shine.
Possibly the most complex Pixar film to date, The Incredibles was definitely the most adult (it was the first to be rated PG, but ratings alone don't indicate maturity level). The movie deals with life and death situations, identity issues, the loss of innocence and the breakdown of marriage. And it tackles all of these issues with pitch-perfect metaphors used to mesh them with a larger-than-life superhero story.
Ever since it was released, The Incredibles has reigned as my favorite animated movie (though there is stiff competition from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut and now WALL-E), and with good reason. Every aspect of this movie works. If you weren't convinced from my previous posts that the movies that Pixar produces are something special, let this movie be the one to convince you.
Cars remains the only Pixar movie I have not seen. I probably will someday, but for now, I'm fairly ok without having seen it. The next movie was Ratatouille, which also became a Brad Bird film through chance and merit. Although this movie was not a brainchild of Bird's, when the original director left the project, Bird was called in to direct, most likely because of his superb work on The Incredibles.
Ratatouille is the story of two misfits, a man and a rat, who come together because of the mutually beneficial relationship that is produced; the man, Alfredo Linguini, needs a job, and the only place left that will take him is a restaurant that belonged to his mother's dead lover. The rat, Remy, has aspirations of becoming a chef, but can barely enter the restaurant's kitchen without being attacked. With Remy guiding Linguini's actions, the two each get what they have always desired.
This story is a much tougher sell than anything else that Pixar has presented us with before. And yet, just like everything else, it works beautifully. This being a Pixar film, part of that beauty is in the picture; the depiction of a slightly romanticized version of Paris is the first time a real life city has been rendered by the company, and it is dazzling. But this wouldn't be a Pixar film without an incredible story to tell. It sounds fairly simple, as do the plots of nearly every Pixar film, but the "simplicity" of story allows for complex characters to thrive. The characters drive all the action here. Their decisions, flaws, desires and quirks provide the narrative.
Hopefully, these two films will allow Bird to keep making more films, hopefully, but not necessarily with Pixar.
Up next: Dystopian wonders...
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