If you find yourself troubled by something mysterious or a problem that’s hard to solve, there’s a place you can go, a place where…
There are few movies that are so lovely, so absolutely lovely that you simply can’t find anything negative to say about them once the credits begin to roll in. Studio Ghibli’s The Cat Returns is such a film, and I recently had the good fortune of watching it after a tumultuous couple of days.
The Cat Returns is a unique feature in Ghibli’s filmography because it was neither directed by veterans Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro) nor Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies), but by Hiroyuki Morita who began as a animator in the 1999 Ghibli film My Neighbors the Yamadas. Additionally, The Cat Returns is an indirect sequel to a previous Ghibli film, Whisper of the Heart, for a unique reason: in Whisper of the Heart, a girl writes and draws out a story about a cat named Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, a sophisticated feline who comes to the aid of those who need it, and his companion Muta, a large white cat who’s insatiable appetite is just as big (if not larger). Baron proved to be so popular that Ghibli was requested by a Japanese theme park to create a 20-minute short starring cats, and though the project was eventually canceled manga artist Aoi Hiiragi was commissioned and created the manga equivalent of the short, titled Baron: The Cat Returns (バロン 猫の男爵), featuring Miyazaki’s envisioned characters Baron and Muta, as well as a mysterious antique shop. The “Cat Project” was then used as testing grounds for future Ghibli directors, intended to be 45 minute short, and eventually Morita was chosen to proceed with the project. However, over the course of nine months Morita translated Hiiragi’s manga story into 525 pages of storyboard, thus influencing Miyazaki’s producer Toshio Suzuki to green light a theatrical length release mainly because Morita’s depiction of Hiiragi’s female protagonist, Haru, felt genuinely real and believable. This makes The Cat Returns the second theatrical Ghibli feature to be directed by someone other than Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata, a definitively unique trait in Ghibli’s current filmography of eighteen completed films.
The premise is this: Haru, a young high school girl who periodically runs late to school and is undeniably unsure of herself, rescues an unusual cat from getting hit while it crosses the street. It turns out she saved the Cat Prince Lune of the Cat Kingdom, and finds herself bombarded by (unwanted) generosity from the Cat King and his subjects as they fill her yard with catnip, her locker with mice and arrange her marriage to Lune. Distraught, Haru seeks out the Cat Bureau after hearing a kind voice suggest so, and finds herself in the company of Muta the obese white cat, Toto the raven, and Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, owner of the Cat Bureau. With the help of Baron, Muta and Toto (as well as others who I won’t name here), Haru finds herself in the heart of the Cat Kingdom and a great escape from the Cat King’s castle before she permanently transforms into a cat.
The story of The Cat Returns lends itself to such amicability and charm that it’s near impossible to feel miserable after watching seventy-five minutes of topnotch animation and beautifully harmonic music. Its primary appeal owes much to the protagonist Haru, whose uncertainty and insecurity ubiquitous to many high schoolers is animated so well and convincingly so that I’m sure many girls can easily identify with her minute quirks and mishaps, and the charming cat Baron, whose no-nonsense, straightforward and perfectly confident self could easily swoon anyone if he were any less anthropomorphized. Muta, of course, is the tubby sidekick with a snappy temper and gluttonous palate, seemingly selfish at first but soon revealed to be well-meaning at heart.
While the story’s subtext is one of personal and emotional growth, The Cat Returns is so unassuming, so self-assured and so charming that frankly, the take away message is probably the least of your concerns after it all ends. It’s a simple story, and marvelously so: very much in the vein of classic stories of knights and heroines, The Cat Returns unpretentiously lays out a engaging narrative from start to finish, never once hinting the possibility of despair and unhappy endings; it all ends well – not in the typically sappy or grotesquely self-indulgent sort, but in the feel-good, down-to-earth mannerism typical of many Ghibli films like My Neighbor Totoro. There’s also a distinct element of magical realism prevalent throughout The Cat Returns, very much like the mythos and magic of Spirited Away and gaming-meets-real-life of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: in Morita’s film, there cats can go between their dimension and ours, and as Haru finds herself in a marital predicament she is invited and led to the slightly different albeit similar dimension of felines (it’s implied that portals can lead to and from human and cat dimensions, but not solely).
For audiophiles of classical or film music, The Cat Returns is a must-own. Composed by Yuji Nomi (who always wrote the music for the indirect prequel Whisper of the Heart), this beautiful symphonic arrangement supplies tracks that are easily stand alone from the film and one another and support the animation without overwhelming the screen (a perfect example of auditory overload would be Star Trek in 2009). Those familiar with the music from Whisper of the Heart may recognize some similar motifs, which is a nice musical wink and a skillful, subtle addition to an already superb soundtrack.
For animation enthusiasts, The Cat Returns delivers some of the finest to date. From the animalistic and anthropomorphic movement of felines to the subtle gestures, nods, twitches and shrugs of a young high schooler, it’s unsurprising that this film received the Excellence Prize at the 2002 Japan Media Arts Festival, an annual festival held by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs since 1997. There are some anime conventions here and there (but isn’t this always the case for all anime?) but the technical mastery of movement and expression distinguish The Cat Returns as an anime film that rises above many biases against conventions and stereotypes of anime. Nothing is jerky, abrupt, or feels inorganic – it’s all very weighted in reality, with an mixture of equally believable (or at least emotionally and aesthetically fathomable) magical realism and spectacular sights animation can achieve that live-action can only dream of.
There really isn’t anything evil or malicious in this universe – plenty of monarchal misgivings, misjudgments and misunderstandings, but really which dynasty didn’t have their share? – so even in the moments of malice (and occasionally hilarity) The Cat Returns convinces us constantly that no matter what, everything will be okay. And indeed, the film delivers not only on its promise, but even more with its charm and inexplicable warmness that, in my case, washed away two days of troubles as if they never existed – the sort of gem that you’ll just have to experience for yourself.
In lieu of my discussion on “Ghosting,” a few weeks ago Allan Estrella recommended Time of Eve, commenting that the story was exceptional in exploring human behavior with respect to artificial beings – specifically robots and androids, or artificial “ghosts."
The premise is this: in the (likely) future of Japan, androids have become as commercial as the cell phone and laptop. However, in order to maintain traditional social structure, humans and androids are discouraged from interaction beyond basic controls and commands, and androids are required to always maintain a halo-like projection above their heads so they may not be mistaken as humans.
The main character, Rikuo, has taken robots for granted his entire life. One day, he discovers that his family’s home android, Sammy, has begun acting independently, and with his friend Masaki traces her movements to a cafe called "Time of Eve,” where any patron – android or human – is welcomed, and no one is discriminated against.
From there on out, the story explores different vignettes of characters, from the hyperactive Akiko to the lovers Koji and Rina. The main conflict, of course, is how humancentric behavior arises in lieu of an intelligent, artificial being created by humans, and how such fears, prejudices, and pride can make us as inhuman as the androids we make out to be. In Time of Eve, humans commonly treat androids subserviently, coldly ordering them about without a single glance. Social stigma additionally deters people from acting kindly, graciously or gratefully to androids: the mere act of holding an umbrella over an android will get others pointing and laughing at you, derogatively labeling you as a dori-kei (“android holic”). Such behavior is encouraged non-governmental organization, the Robot Ethics Committee, which advocates segregation between humans and robots and the government to enforce such.
At the heart of this conflict is one of emotional legitimacy: given that robots and androids are cognitively capable (if not more than humans regarding information processing) due to their code and algorithmic coding (and are thus self-learning, perhaps to an extent), does this mean they are capable of emotional display and reception?; and if so, should we consider such as legitimate?
First, let’s consider living organisms, more particularly the vertebrates (reptiles, birds, mammals). Animals, while possibly exhibiting physical features or behavior similar to humans (Chimpanzees, for example), are not us: we cannot interbreed viable offspring with non-Homo sapiens, yet there is a tendency for animal lovers to anthropomorphize certain aspects of animals we observe (I’m particularly fond of Oxboxer’s description of cheetah cubs: “They look like the kid you hated in preschool because he got light-up sneakers three months before they were even being sold in the States, and lorded it over everyone until your friend colored his hair green with a marker during nap time.”) This is especially true for household pets, and lends us to distress whenever they pass away. Understandably, our tendency to become emotionally attached to animals is not unusual: their behaviors are invariably tied to their emotions, and while we cannot completely communicate or understand between them and ourselves the underlying attachment is one of organic core – our natural, organic ghosts, per se.
Now let’s consider why we get attached to inanimate objects. Most of the time it’s because of nostalgia or keepsake, or perhaps even habitual. These objects are not human, yet somehow we find some sort personal meaning in them. For instance, for months I rode a 11-year-old bike that was too small for me, and had a broken front derailed, severely misaligned rim breaks, an old chain, and a steel frame so heavy I’m pretty sure my upper arm strength increased significantly just from lifting it on occasion; yet I never had the heart to abandon it because I had so many biking memories attached to it (I even named it “Bikey” to commemorate my affection). Eventually, I had to invest in a new bike because the effort of pedaling up and down hills with Bikey increasingly irritated the tendonitis in my left knee, and unless I wanted to continue half-limping on foot I knew it was time to put Bikey in the garage (for the record, I named my current bike “BB”, only highlighting another tendency of mine to become attached to objects otherwise inanimate).
This leads us to the last level which is on the verge of the uncanny valley: an intelligent artificial being constructed by our own algorithms and for our own purposes. Assuming that A.I. are capable of self-learning to an extent, the conflict is now a question of whether or not our own emotional reactions to them and their’s to ours have true emotional weight, or if we should abide by our own logic and merely consider them derivatives of our own being, tools that are anthropomorphized very closely to our likeness but nevertheless derivatives.
This latter mentality is presented in Roger Ebert’s review of Stanley Kubrick’s and Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, where he states:
But when a manufactured pet is thrown away, is that really any different from junking a computer? … From a coldly logical point of view, should we think of David, the cute young hero of “A.I.,” as more than a very advanced gigapet? Do our human feelings for him make him human? Stanley Kubrick worked on this material for 15 years, before passing it on to Spielberg, who has not solved it, either. It involves man’s relationship to those tools that so closely mirror our own desires that we confuse them with flesh and blood…
Ebert brings up an interesting point, which is whether we impose and project our own beliefs and feelings upon what is otherwise an animate and well-programmed tool – a practice not too unsimilar to a child projecting their fantasies and adventures upon their doll or stuffed animal, for instance. There is also a question of a A.I. being so well-programmed as to detect our facial muscles twitch, contract and relax and react so appropriately human that they effectively trick us into believing their emotions are real, thus resulting in our illogical mentality of humanizing something that is nothing more than a extremely sophisticated tool.
Do you remember that one that was constantly reading books? Well, when we got to the lab, the first thing the techs did was take apart its brain! It kind of seemed like that tachikoma liked it though.
Oh, I see! Then, they were lucky enough to experience death…
Consider this: in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Major Motoko Kusanagi and her team at Section 9 work with A.I. tanks called Tachikoma. As the series progresses, the Tachikoma increasingly develop more and more distinct personalities and have increasing tendencies to act independently despite orders from their users. Troubled by this, Motoko eventually halts use of the Tachikoma’s and has them sent back to the lab for further testing. However, as the series progress and only three remaining Tachikoma return to help Batou (Motoko’s closest companion amongst the Section 9 members), they eventually sacrifice themselves in order to save Batou’s life; and as Motoko looks on at their remains, she acknowledges that she mistakenly had them put out of commission, and even ponders if they had reached the state of creating their own distinct ghosts.
While these questions are interesting to mull over, I believe the more important question is how we behave to an intelligent entity that is otherwise unbounded by our biological, organic limits of the flesh. We can argue to the end of time whether or not an A.I.’s “emotions” are real or not, and there can really be no way of knowing for sure; what we can assess is our own reactions, feelings and behavior when confronted with them.
For an analogy, let’s consider video games: I’m not going to argue whether or not the medium is an art form, but I think we can all agree that all video games offer a virtual simulation of something – fighting, adventure, strategy, interaction, etc. The virtual environment is the product of programmers piecing together polygons into what conceptual artists conceived and writers hoped to flesh out within the constructs of a console or computer; algorithms and codes allow players to do whatever they want within the confines of the programmed environment, and with nothing short of individual A.I. and environments aspects for us to talk to or mess around with. Now, logic dictates that these virtual environments are nothing more but gateways for temporal detachment from our immediate physical environment; yet I dare anyone to claim that they did not experience something while running through the desert’s of Red Dead Redemption or confronting the likes of Andrew Ryan in Bioshock.
The process of creating a videogame may be the greatest and grandest illusion ever created, but when finished, it holds the capacity to grant us experiences we can never experience. Loves we have never loved, fights we have never fought, losses we have never lost. The lights may turn off, the stage may go dark, but for a moment, while the disc still whirs and our fingers wrap around the buttons, we can believe we are champions.
Video game players will always invest a certain amount of emotions into any game they choose to engage in. Whether it be placing your heart on Pikachu in Super Smash Brothers Brawl or wondering when the hell the story in Final Fantasy XIII is going to actually become interesting, there is almost a guarantee that these games elicit some emotional reaction from us – excitement, fear, frustration, sorrow, these emotions are real to us. Whether or not the game A.I.s share such sentiment is irrelevant, for we can only truly account for ourselves, and ourselves alone.
So perhaps a robot or android may create the illusion of seeming more human than they actually are, or perhaps deep down their circuitry they perhaps do care about how we feel – we will never know. We can account for our behavior towards such A.I., and consider what exactly we feel entitled to in our given society and culture.
In Time of Eve, there is a distinct political and social structure that discourages people from acting humanely towards androids, who are governed by the Three Laws of Robotics:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Additionally, all androids in Time of Eve are required to always display a halo projection above their heads, a marker that determines their subservient status. Constant propaganda ads spearheaded by the non-governmental Ethics Committee claim that sociable interaction between humans and androids are unhealthy, will end in disaster and possibly lead to the end of humanity; and it is neither uncommon for android owners to toss luggage at them without so much of a glance or unimaginable thank you, less they be deemed dori-kei and face ridicule from their peers. To be blunt, there’s nothing short of social norms or policy that enforces human and android segregation.
Stepping back, the social and political structures in Time of Eve are not so unlike a democracy that deems segregation a norm. The most obvious example is that of Apartheid in South Africa, where a white minority democratically voted for segregation and lacking civil rights to their native African country. It took years for the likes of Nelson Mandela and other activists to end political mandate justifying racism, mostly because for years the empowered, minority white South Africans considered the social and political barriers a norm: by virtue of politics beginning from colonial times, caucasian Afrikaaners were obviously quite comfortable with their perceived birth right; it didn’t matter that their comfort and political representation was at the expense of a color majority – they had politicians to back up their views, and democratically so because for years the majority black Afrikaans were deprived of citizenship.
The argument can be made that because androids are not human, we cannot treat them like how we would treat other fellow human beings. Perhaps this would be convincing if incarnations of it beforehand had not be used to justify injustice between fellow human begins beforehand: African slavery, European colonialism, the Holocaust – all atrocities against human rights twisted humanity into a sort of superiority complex, rationalizing entitlement rights groups of people believed they had above others. Furthermore, this argument structure again ignores the most pressing issue – how we behave as humans when dealing with individuals we are unfamiliar with.
* Some may strongly stand by the divide between organic and inorganic beings, and state that since androids are artificial intelligence, we cannot equate such segregation to that between humans. If this is the case, then I offer this other example: if I were to equate androids to computers by virtue of them both being created as tools, our behavior is still indicative of ourselves at least. That is, if I take horrendous care of my MacBook and repeatedly drop it or fail to do simple maintenance on it, my MacBook may still operate and function but my carelessly reflects poorly of me regarding my behavior and lack of responsibility towards maintaining my computer; if I take excellent care of my MacBook (and I contest that I do), my MacBook may still operate and function but my maintenance and care for my MacBook reflects well of my abilities as a computer owner and responsibility towards it.
In Time of Eve, policies and social structures against human-android interaction likely stem from public fear, distrust and insecurity culminating into a nationwide superiority complex, where it is absolutely normal for a person to feel superior than an android, regardless of the android’s intellectual and functional capabilities. As this negativity became more and more widespread, social structures morphed as well to accommodate such fervor, and eventually formed the policies which forbade human-android relationships from progressing into the uncanny valley of emotions and attachment. It’s considered taboo to humans to be humane to androids. Now given the social and political structures deeming inhumane behavior proper and normal, what does it mean when one chooses to or not abide by such norms?
It takes no courage to act accordingly within social and political structures which provide you power at the expense of others’ dignity and civil rights; it takes an extraordinary person to break away from inhumane behavior otherwise deemed normal by a democratic majority, and especially speaks volumes about our ability to aspire towards a humanistic ideal above and beyond our dark, personal demons. Our emotions are our own, and if we feel an attachment to something otherwise illogical, then so be it – it is our right as humans, as well as our responsibility to act in the positive if we are to claim our rights to humanity. So if it means I’ll get laughed at for holding an umbrella over an android’s head, that’s fine by me.
To be real is to be mortal; to be human is to love, to dream and to perish.
One of the things I worry about is the idea that a single technological innovation will save the world from all our troubles. Not too long ago Roger Ebert posted an interesting video about Solar Roadways, a project which essentially replaces all traditional asphalt with solar panels in order to generate and meet energy needs.
I commented about the potential problems the project might have – from individual circuits within each panel to maintenance and so on – and received a response from another who stated that as a working scientist, they truly believed that solar energy was the only way to go in order to solve the world’s problems from energy to even famine (for some odd reason, our comments are no longer visible, so this recap is purely from memory from over a month ago).
Hearing comments like these worries me because it entails a myopic understanding of technology and its inner workings. For centuries, humans have aspired towards the one remedy, the one cure, the one anything that would solve all of our problems, and invariably these brilliant innovations had their share of additional, unforeseen problems as well (may of which I’ve previously talked about here).
Not to say that we shouldn’t be optimistic about human tenacity and innovation, but there’s a need to be realistic as well. These days, I spend my time around too many engineers to not think about how something new might have some issues, and how those issues could (or couldn’t) be resolved with what technology currently allows us to address.
Say, for instance, the solar road takes off (and I surely hope it does) – what could possibly happen? Given that each panel has complex circuitry, that means that there’s a higher chance for something to wrong by virtue of problems/issues being a function of complexity (for math nerds, we could even write this as FCUK(complexity)*). This also means that road workers will require extra training, which could possibly be more expensive for companies and contractors specializing in road work (or even the government, which would mean tax dollars). One of the nice things regarding asphalt is that road maintenance is relatively easy since it’s a durable-enough material; sure you’ll get the occasional pot holes and fun stuff, but you only need to re-lay asphalt every few years or so.
To point being is that no single piece of technology or scientific innovation can truly be without its trouble and be 100% guaranteed to completely change how the world turns and functions. In a ideal world, I’d love to agree with the sentiment that solar power can possibly solve at least 95% of the world’s problems somehow. Solar power cars, solar power roof tiles, solar power generators, solar power laptops… the possibilities seem endless, right?
The only downfall to this is that unfortunately, a subset of the world’s population lives in weather conditions to Seattle, where it rains at least 90% of the year (hyperbole not guaranteed) or likewise areas where the sun doesn’t shine like the golden coast Katy Perry seems to enjoy popping about so much these days. Not to mention infrastructures that may not even allow for nice ol’ contractors to go in and blow up, given cultural sensitivities and sacred buildings and all that jazz. Personally, I don’t think someone would be all too ecstatic that their famine issue might be resolved if you blow up their sacred burial ground for your solar power project.
The slightly hyperbolized example set aside, we have to be realistic whenever something new comes up, and it is not realistic to say “this ___ will solve all our problems, if only ____!” Everything is a collective, singular components making up the whole and whole producing the singular components, and so on. We can’t realistically proclaim a something will cure everything simply because everything consists of many somethings. Watson Crick’s belief that genetics determine everything ignores all environmental conditions that may bar a prodigy from ever reaching their full potential (or even living long enough for the matter); Raymond Kurzweil, as well as other Singularity movement enthusiasts, believe that a select few of technological geniuses can affect nations without getting into politics at all; and so many other innovators who believed they held the key to solving everything – and I mean everything – with the utter confidence that tomorrow would have few to no problems at all.
We have to be realistic: problems exist because it is the physical construct of our world, from atoms to electron to energy to mass – there’s no absolute good or bad without the other; that is to say – if we didn’t have problems, how could we know what we had was actually good to begin with?
Perhaps it’s the human condition to continuously try to overcome limits and barriers that come our way. Pessimists will unrealistically proclaim it’s all pointless; optimists will unrealistically elicit it’ll all be over soon; and pragmatist will acknowledge it’s just another step at a time, towards a different future than what we have at the moment.
*I really hope a dyslexic child doesn’t read this sentence.
Animator and director Brad Bird wrote and created three movies that demonstrate something strongly inherent to the American spirit and philosophy: the individual.
Premiering with The Iron Giant in 1999, Bird went on to Pixar with The Incredibles in 2004 and most recently Ratatouille in 2007; to date, he’s directing Mission Impossible IV with Tom Cruise, his first live-action film endeavor, and another mark in his unique characteristics of a director capable of both animation and live-action projects. In a rare feat he’s created three commercially (nix The Iron Giant, perhaps) and critically successful films that are all entertaining and incredibly smart: likely a product of working on The Simpsons, Bird has always managed to evenly mix entertainment value with sharp writing studded with significantly darker and more mature themes.
So what makes Bird so intriguing? It could be that he was a child prodigy, drawing and completing an astounding fifteen-minute animated at age thirteen over the course of two years; or at age fourteen, he was mentored by one of Disney’s legendary Nine Old Men, Milt Kahl; or possibly that upon receiving a scholarship from Disney to attend CalArts, he met and befriended John Lasseter at age twenty-one. Whatever it may be, there’s no denying that Bird adds distinct flourishes to each frame and cleverly mixes in more adult, darker thematics that are pervasive throughout his entire filmography thus far. Most notably, however, is his distinct emphasis on the exceptional individual, the one who’s abilities supersede everyone else around them, and how this exceptionalism can both be celebrated and deterred by the very people surrounding it.
Arguably, Bird’s emphasis on the exceptional individual may be a result of his own childhood and the time period he grew up in; however, I’m not here to speculate how Mr. Bird got to where he is today, but what his films explore, and most interestingly why he is such a notable progressive within the realm of animation.
Iron Giant, Loving Heart
You can learn this, Hogart. That I can do anything I want, whenever I want if I feel it’s in the people’s best interest.
With the debut of The Iron Giant, Brad Bird demonstrated something unusually characteristic of his writing and directing style that we can see with his two subsequent films. Traditionally animated, the film takes place in the Golden Fifties, where McCarthyistic sentiment just begins to take hold of public sentiment. While it is a classic boy-and-his-alien/mystical-friend parable, what sets The Iron Giant apart from the likes of E.T. is how much emphasis there is on the Iron Giant’s other wordily abilities, and how it’s (his?) abilities set off a chain of positive and negative reaction from the people within proximity. Hogarth, the boy who finds him, balances out the Giant’s presence with a positive presence who is astounded by the robot, while Kent Mansley, the U.S. Government agent, serves as the negative presence who considers the robot as a threat.
The contrast between the boy Hogarth and the government official Mansley is a strong one to consider: here we have the young, free-spirited boy who emphasizes with a amnesiac robot with no friends, and is able to appreciate the giant’s abilities and personality; conversely, we have a promotion-interested government agent who acts antagonistically to the giant’s presence, simply because he is driven to become more acknowledged by the democracy he serves. To put it simply, we’ve got the young boy symbolic of individualism and the official symbolic of collectivism: Hogarth acts simply because he’s interested in the Giant as a individual, and Mansley acts harshly because he’s interested in recognition from the collective democracy.
Mansley’s characterization differs from those of the government in E.T. because it’s clear he has ulterior motives that are in self-interest, while officials in E.T. acted because wanted to study (and dissect) an unknown alien life form. Both The Iron Giant and E.T. frame government officials in a unfavorable light, but The Iron Giant goes further to highlight individual corruption within a collective that invariably hired such individuals to represent the collective. In Mansley’s case, his M.O. is a parable for those who feel threatened by an entity greater than they are, and react by finding means to drag down such exceptionalism to the level of mundanity and commonness.
An Incredible Ability
Right now, honey, the world just wants us to fit in, and to fit in, we gotta be like everyone else.
With The Incredibles in 2004, Bird again explored the motif of the government bogging down exceptional individuals, and more explicitly so. Early in the film, it’s clear that the government acts on behalf of popular sentiment, in which case it’s that supers are a “menace” to society and rather than using their superpowers for civil service, should live as indiscriminately, inconspicuously and unspectacularly as everyone else – like “normal people."
Here, the antagonism is less the government and more the collectivist fervor that, perhaps out of jealousy, fear, or both, deems exceptionalism as a threat and not a celebratory feat. More explicit than The Iron Giant is the theme that to be forced into "normalcy” effectively destroys any sense of individualism or uniqueness, and is even cruel for the matter. We see Mr. Incredible/Bob Parr forced into a tiny grey cubicle, his giant physique barely allotting him elbow room as he works within the stifling confines of an insurance company. While his insatiable good conscious drives a persistent twitch for doing good (his clients know every single loophole within the bureaucracy we know as bullsh*t paperwork), Bob isn’t happy. Not one bit.
And who could blame him? When you’re suddenly dragged, forced and stuffed into something artificially “normal,” it’s absolutely suffocating. You can’t breathe, think, live, and most importantly be yourself. It’s a cruel punishment, to feel smothered by what otherwise feels like an overwhelming mass of mediocrity that seems to find “new ways to celebrate mediocrity.”
Even worse is that Bob’s work superiors are not only unexceptional, but dishonest, petty, manipulative, and greedy – the very same characteristics he worked hard to curtail in his glory days. As many of us can attest to, there’s nothing worse than having an incompetent jackass of a boss looking over cubicle and giving you heads up about “fun tie fridays” then casually mentioning that you might want to consider getting a new shirt while you’re out getting a new tie (and I’m sure on more than one occasion we’ve all had the urge to chuck our jackass boss through a couple of walls and cubicles). His boss, however unlikable, shares the same exact mentality as the collective that put Bob and other supers into their current deteriorating state: be a nice cog that fits nicely into other cogs that make up a nice, working clock.
Anyone Can Cook
Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.
Though Ratatouille wasn’t Bird’s original idea (that credit belongs to Jan Pinkava, director of the famous Pixar short Geri’s Game), his revision of Pinkava’s original story is in the very vein of his previous two movies. This time, the antagonistic element lies solely within the social structures developed and accepted by a specific culture, and how one unusual and uncannily skilled protagonist finds his way to overcoming such barriers.
Remy, the rat with a nose for smell and taste, is the least likely chef and food enthusiast you could possibly imagine. But here he is, in the fur, and ready to rock and roll. Unfortunately, human perception of rats is unfavorable, and since he’s trying to become an exceptional chef by human standards well – seems like we’ve run into a problem now.
The movie’s motto, anyone can cook, speaks volumes about exceptionalism coming from anywhere: not anyone can cook, but a great cook from come from anywhere – even a rat. Of course, it’s difficult to overcome and overlook presumptions and assumptions about social barriers and norms that otherwise block an unwitting talent from ever blooming to full potential, but nevertheless it takes a lot of courage to even acknowledge such a talent to begin with.
Ratatouille’s ideological antagonism is less the collective and more about assumptions and views we may have regarding someone based off their background, race, upbringing (or in this case, species). It still celebrates the individual ability, but frames it so in a way that is less dismissive than The Incredibles and more about progressive open-mindedness and a dare to defend something novel, talented, and unusual.
The Individual
Like I said in the beginning, Bird’s driving thematic is the exceptional individual overcoming obstacles prevalent. Whether it be a corrupt government official or a illogically jealous and fearful community, or even the fact that you want to be an ace chef despite being non-human – well to hell with it all, we want these characters to rise above all!
This sentiment is all too familiar to Horatio Alger’s famous penny novels about poor souls pulling themselves up “by their own boot strings” to become rich and prosperous elites (notwithstanding the various barriers that barred about 99% of the population from ever achieving such a feat). Like Alger’s rags-to-riches stories, Bird’s ideological vein throughout his three movies rings and resonates so soundly with such an American dream, that the individual, through their own means, can overcome whatever barriers would otherwise shun those less capable or less exceptional of pursuing thus wise.
In this sense, Brad Bird really does embody a distinctly American spirit, one that celebrates exceptionalism and individual achievement. While I don’t completely agree with this philosophy (I think there’s a value to the individual and the collective; to what degrees and variance I may elaborate on another day), I can understand where he’s coming from in this respect.
To date, I think The Incredibles probably represents Bird the best, while Ratatouille highlights a more humane and optimistic sentiment. With his upcoming Mission Impossible IV, I look forward to seeing how Bird’s action direction in animation translates to live-action with Tom Cruise on board, and whether the qualities and limits of both animation and live-action will affect Bird’s directing abilities. For now, we’ll just have to see what he has up his sleeve, to wait and see what action-packed adventure Mr. Bird can savorily dish out for us next.
I think I’m going to throw up too. I want to thank the Academy and my Jr. High guidance counselor. Where he said “what do you want to do with your life”. And I said “make movies.” And he said “what if there were no movies?” I said “I’ll make some.” We went on like this until we got sick of eachother. I realize that he gave me the best training for making films.
I want to thank my wife Liz and my kids. All the dreamers at Pixar and Disney….
And all the dreamers who are supporting a rat that dreams….
The Incredibles is one of those movies that’s always playing on ABC family, and for good reason too: it’s a damn good movie.
Story-wise, it’s a darker brand in the Pixar filmography, penned by none other than Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, Ratatouille); technical-wise, the film couldn’t be a better demonstration of framing and directing action sequences. Bird not only utilizes animation’s capacity to rise above physical limits of live-action films, but also creates dynamic sequences by switching up angles and points of focus. One of my favorite scenes in The Incredibles demonstrates all of these characteristics plus a little extra – an excellent use of the natural environment.
It happens that Dash and his sister Violet have been spotted by soldiers on a private island, and both split up they are pursued by said soldiers who are ordered to either take them in alive or dead. As his name implies, Dash can run at superspeed, which lends him an extra boost when he finds himself confronted with a body of water and rock formations.
For numerous reasons I’ll explain below, this scene (click here for the video link) nicely executes aspects of action optimal for a animation and a natural environment:
We start off with a reaction shot of Dash…
…and a quick camera cut reveals that there’s a body of water approaching…
He braces himself …
…still bracing himself…
…until it’s revealed that hey – apparently having superspeed enables you to run on water.
Physics aside, this newfound discovery for Dash has comedic timing that sets off the chase scene upon the body of water. We know now his basic running abilities on water: now it’s time to see how he can really use the environment to its full potential…
(frankly, I’d be pretty stoked too if I found myself capable of running on water)
Here we begin with a aerial shot of Dash, which puts his position (as well as his pursuers) in context with the natural environment. It’s a perfect establishment shot, followed shortly by a tracking shot that zooms up towards the characters…
… to include the pursuers, as well as give the viewer another establishing shot of the natural environment from a different angle (a semi-horizontal position with a semi-dutch angle, in this case)
For a split moment, we get a close up of the pursuers tracking Dash (almost analogously to how the camera tracks Dash and the pursuers from an aerial shot only a few seconds earlier)
Here, the camera really establishes where Dash and his pursuers are in relation to one another:
Dash in the front…
… and the pursuers in the back. We see here the pursuers opening fire (presumably after they’ve “locked” his position with their tracker):
The camera changes angles from a front/back POV to a quarter/semi-profile view of Dash and his pursuers. It’s a excellent choice because again, it puts Dash and the soldiers in relationship to their environment and its elements. We see clearly the trail of water behind Dash as he runs full speed…
… and additionally how the soldiers/plane-thing explodes when they cannot avoid the magnificent, natural rock formations upon the water. This really establishes the elemental force of the environment’s characteristics, that it is not simply an area that action can take place: effectively, Dash and the soldiers are very actively interacting with the environment, as the trail of water and the impact upon the rock imply.
The camera switches back to the front/back POV, and this time what’s emphasized is the bullets hitting the water as the squad fires upon Dash:
These cuts and frames demonstrate a great use of the natural environment, again establishing that the characters on screen are very much apart of the environment they currently reside: bullets don’t simply go “puh puh puh puh!” and don’t leave a dent somewhere - they’re hitting the water, leaving a distinct trail of quick, vibrant splashes. Additionally, the quick cutting emphasizes how quickly everyone is maneuvering around the rocks: Dash sprints and uses the unique properties of water to propel himself and turn smoothly at sharp corners while the soldiers tilt their plane-things up and down, left and right (upside down?) so they don’t faceplant (explode) onto solidified sediment.
Here, the camera becomes stationary and pans from the left to the right, again establishing Dash and the soldiers in relation to the rock-water environment, which is appropriate considering it leads up to the following:
– the cave. For a moment here, we get a nice glimpse at what the soldier on screen (dubbed soldier A for the purposes of this scene dissection) is possibly contemplating as he hesitates to follow Dash immediately into the cave, as we’ll see why soon…
A nice cut to a front POV of Dash, highlighted by the light of the cave opening behind him as the soldier pursues him. And while the tunnel-like constrictions of the cave could possibly make the action less dynamic, Bird demonstrates again why characters interacting with their immediate environment can make anything that more interesting, and especially in an action sequence:
We see here that Dash runs up the cave walls above his lone pursuer…
… and see this again up-the-wall run again from a different POV. While it might be hard to see solely off the screenshots, Bird actually makes a subtle directing choice by not cutting the action real-time – the up-the-wall runs overlap one another, and thus makes the sequence that more cohesive overall.
We see how the water splashes in relation to Dash’s movements again, which is nice detail that again establishes the dynamic relationship between the cave/water environment and the characters.
Here’s a reaction shot of Dash as he looks behind him, pleased to have gotten away from the pursuer (and indeed, quite proud of his improv)
We have a momentary FPS-like shot of the cave opening…
… we get a glimpse at Dash’s reaction (“yay!”) …
… and then we see where soldier A went to …
… and Dash realizes he may be trapped (“CRAP-!!!”)
The scene switches to another stationary camera that pans left to right, then left again as it tracks Dash’s movements between the two pursuing soldiers:
In a split moment, when he think’s he’s trapped, Bird pulls one last trick in the water-rock action sequence:
Since we’ve been so enthralled by Dash’s ability to run on water and interact so dynamically with the immediate natural environment, for a few seconds the basic rules and physics of his animation don’t occur to us until he stops running entirely – and then the moment of re-realization happens (“oh yeah he has to keep running in order to stay on top of water…!”)
To finish off the action sequence, we get a nice underwater shot of the explosion above us. While it’s still Dash-centric, it’s a nice visual to see balls of fire above when looking up from below a watery surface (additionally, this is a PG movie, which means no lingering moments on explosions and death are allowed in order to get this rating).
Above all, this entire sequence shines because of one, key thing: character and environment interaction.
It might sound obvious, but it’s rather easy to completely overlook unique characteristics of the immediate environment the characters occupy during an action sequence. In the above screenshots above, Bird takes small moments to focus on how the characters affect the environment and vice versa, even choreographing clever moments that appropriate the natural realm such as the rock formation impact, Dash running up the cave wall and then sinking below the water after a momentary pause.
The small details are what matter since they make the action sequence that more plausible and substantial: for less skillful execution of action sequences (such as this so-bad-it’s-hilarious clip from Undeafeatable) the characters interact so minimally and so obviously with their environment that it’s mind-numbingly uncreative:
A meat hook? Really? You’ve got an entire warehouse of boxes and equipment and - honestly, the only time a character interacts with the environment is when he gets hooked on a hook?
In a slaughterhouse, a meat hook is much, much too obvious. Conversely, a master of environment interaction is none other than Jackie Chan himself, who famously uses everything from chairs to class, to even shirts and tables and chopsticks – anything near him that he can use to fight someone, he’ll grab it and exhaust it of its use in any action sequence.
While I wouldn’t say this scene from The Incredibles is Chan status, it demonstrates some immaculate and skillful work under Bird’s directing hand by virtue of the dynamic character-environment interaction throughout. And by all means, it’s makes the scene that more exciting as well!
