An Aspect of Disney Films You Had Not Considered

The public thinks of Disney movies as entertainment.  Artists may think of them as inspiration.  Ron Suskind describes how Disney movies were the key to his autistic son overcoming isolation and learning to deal with the world in an excerpt from his book Life, Animated, to be published April 1.

The story is inspirational for watching someone overcome obstacles, but it's a reminder of the power of communication.  We don't consider what we're communicating in animation often enough, but Suskind's story should remind all of us that what we're communicating matters.

Go read it.  You won't be sorry.

Holiday Screenings in Toronto

There are several animation screenings in Toronto over the next few weeks.

Once again, the TIFF Bell Lightbox is running a retrospective of Studio Ghibli.  The films and times can be found here.

In addition to the well-known Miyazaki classics such as Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away and Ponyo, they are also showing lesser known Ghibli films such as Pom Poko, Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday, Ocean Waves, My Neighbors the Yamadas, The Secret World of Arrietty, Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns.  Miyazaki's collaboration with his son Goro, From Up on Poppy Hill will also screen.

At the Royal, located on College Street 5 blocks west of Bathurst, there will two screenings of the French animated feature Ernest and Celestine on December 27 at 7 p.m. and the 28th at 2 p.m.  Information about the Royal can be found here.

Of course, Disney's Frozen is still in release and as of today, you can still see The Croods or Despicable Me 2 playing somewhere around the city.

A Medium? A Genre? Does it Matter?

Scott Mendelson in Forbes takes a view I've long held.  Animation may be a medium, but Hollywood treats it like a genre.

"It can be argued, and has been argued by the likes of Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille) among others that one shouldn’t discuss animated films as if they are all to be lumped together, since technically the only thing they should have in common is the fact that they are not produced via live-action.  I wish that were wholly true. But when it comes to discussing mainstream animated films in America, it is unfortunately a question of genre. Artistically and especially financially speaking, films like Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 and Turbo are indeed cut from similar cloth in that they are basically targeting the same audience. We might decry this fact, but American animated films are still considered child’s play, a notion that heavily influences who they are aimed at and how they are made."

Unfortunately, when we get something animated aimed at adults, it's because it's unsuitable for children, not because it should be taken seriously by anyone mature.  Today's announcement of Sausage Party, an R-rated animated feature by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, does nothing to advance the cause of animation for adults.

We can argue over the terminology, but it doesn't change the facts.  North American animation is kid stuff.

The Wind Rises

The Wind Rises, viewed at the Toronto International Film Festival, is most likely Miyazaki's last feature film.  It departs from his previous work in many ways.  It is a film of contemplation more than action.  The fantasy elements that Miyazaki has used so effectively are present only in the main character's dreams.    The dreams themselves have ties to the real world, as Jiro Hirokoshi converses with Caproni, an Italian aircraft designer that Jiro has only read about.  Jiro's waking life is our world, with all its problems, and his dreams are related to his real world concerns.

The young Jiro meets Caproni in a dream

While flying is Jiro's ambition, he is too nearsighted to become a pilot.  His compromise is to become an aeronautical engineer and design the planes that he is unable to fly.  While he is interested in planes for their beauty, his work is financed by the Japanese military establishment that has other plans for the machines.

Just as Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima is the Japanese perspective on events depicted in his movie Flags of our Fathers, Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises is in some way a Japanese perspective on William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives.  In both films, ordinary people pursue their goals but are caught up in World War II.  Both films have a similar image near their conclusions: a graveyard of ruined aircraft.

Two events early in the film are the story in miniature.  The first is the Tokyo earthquake and fire of 1923.  While a disaster overall, it prompts heroic action and the rebirth of the city.  Then there is Caproni's dream plane, built after World War I, which crashes on its test flight.  The first disaster is beyond human control and the second is the result of human failure.  In each case, there is disappointment and tragedy, yet people persevere and continue to pursue their goals.  In a dream, Caproni asks Jiro if he would prefer a world with or without pyramids.  The implication is that their construction created both human suffering and beauty.  Both Jiro and Caproni prefer a world with pyramids, a statement that creation is worth suffering for.  As the earthquake shows, there will be suffering in any case, creation or no.

The Wind Rises is both profoundly realistic, unafraid to recognize the disasters and suffering (both natural and man-made) that people must endure, and also profoundly optimistic, in that people continue to follow dreams despite their troubles.  It is a film made by an old man, one who understands that there are no unequivocal happy endings.  Tragedy and disappointment are inevitable in each life.  The pursuit of creating something beautiful stands in opposition to that, the only thing that elevates people beyond mere survival.  

It is not a film for children, not because there is anything objectionable in it but because I suspect it would bore most children.  The film is about adult concerns: the workplace, marriage, politics and death.

I'm curious as to why Disney has decided to distribute this film and also curious as to how they will market it.  Given how hard they worked to shield children from seeing Pecos Bill smoking, Disney can't be happy that several characters in The Wind Rises are chain smokers.  Advertising this as "from the director of Spirited Away" may be literally true but will not represent this film accurately to the family audience.  I doubt it's going to appeal much to weekend moviegoers at the mall as this is not what general audiences have been trained to expect from animated entertainment.

Miyazaki has broken new ground for himself here, stepping away from fantasy to offer a perspective on Japan's past and the value of creativity to human existence.  This film will not please all his fans but he knew that this film would be his final statement. He chose to address his society about the things that he values and those he disdains.  That the film has provoked some controversy in Japan is evidence of Miyazaki's decision to take risks.

I don't know if I'd consider the film a masterpiece.  Is it as good as Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away or Ponyo?  I'll need more viewings to solidify my thoughts.  However, it is an important film, both as part of Miyazaki's body of work and as another advance for mature animated films.

Miyazaki's retirement, while inevitable, is a tragedy for animation as a whole.  His exit will leave a gaping hole in the animation landscape.  We've been blessed to have so many films from him and his compatriots at Studio Ghibli.  The Wind Rises might not be Miyazaki's best film, but it might be his most important.

Controversial Miyazaki II

Updated below.

“My wife and staff would ask me, ‘Why make a story about a man who made weapons of war?’” Miyazaki said in a 2011 interview with Japan’s Cut magazine. “And I thought they were right. But one day, I heard that Horikoshi had once murmured, ‘All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful.’ And then I knew I’d found my subject… Horikoshi was the most gifted man of his time in Japan. He wasn’t thinking about weapons… Really all he desired was to make exquisite planes.”

More on the controversy surrounding Hayao Miyazaki's latest film, The Wind Rises.  For an earlier post about this, go here.

Here's the trailer with English subtitles.  For those of you in Toronto, the film will be playing at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Day of the Crows

Courtesy of TAAFI (Toronto Animated Arts Festival International), I have just seen a terrific animated feature from France.  It's original title is Le Jour des Corneilles and it was co-produced by France, Canada and South Korea.  It is a drawn feature made for less than $10 million U.S. and is easily one of the best animated features I have seen in the last several years.

The film opens with two characters, a father and son who live in a forest.  The father is a gruff barbarian who treats his son with disdain.  The time period is impossible to determine.  It could be a fantasy setting or could be any time in the historical past as there is nothing beyond the natural world to provide a clue.  When the father is injured, the son ventures beyond the forest for the first time to find help, and we then learn that the film is set during the first World War.

The son has grown up isolated from anyone except his father and forest animals.  At this point, the film becomes reminiscent of Francois Truffaut's The Wild Child, where the feral son has to adjust to life in civilization.  As the film continues, it reveals the backstory of who the father is, how he came to live in the forest and what has determined his relationship with his son.

When I watch animated features made in North America, I always know where they're going.  I hope for surprises or twists to break the film out of the predictable story structure that Hollywood continually falls back on.  In this film, I had no idea where it was going and I loved the film for that.  The characters were intriguing, their background was a mystery and the ultimate resolution was not guessable until it arrived.

Director Jean-Christophe Dessaint (left) with TAAFI director Ben McAvoy

The artwork is beautiful, the characters are well developed and the direction and pacing by Jean-Christophe Dessaint, who was present at the screening, were excellent.  I was sitting between Jerry Beck (an old friend) and David Silverman of The Simpsons (who I met today) and the three of us loved the film.  I said to Jerry that this film could easily be the wildcard Oscar nomination for animated feature this year.  Each year, after the major animation studios have been stroked with nominations, the animation branch usually gives a film a nomination based purely on its quality.  This film deserves that nomination this year.  I don't believe that the film has a North American distributor yet, but this is the kind of film that Gkids has picked up in the past and I hope that they, or somebody else, grabs this film.

Apparently, it is already available in Blu-ray with English subtitles, though I don't know where it can be bought.  The amazon.ca DVD listing says that it is bilingual, but there is no indication if it is dubbed or subtitled.  In any case, if it is playing in a festival near you or turns up on Netflix or a cable channel, I highly recommend it.  While the film is still child-friendly (though not for very young children), it has enough adult content that it is a satisfying experience.

It shows clearly that drawn animation is far from exhausted as a medium and it shows how much can be done for a relatively low budget.  More and more, I know that the most interesting animated features are not coming from  North America. 

Controversial Miyazaki

I would look forward to any new film directed by Miyazaki, but I'm especially curious about The Wind Rises.  It's about Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of the Zero, the Japanese fighter plane that was used extensively in World War II.  The subject matter is far from films like Totoro and very far from North American animated features in theatres this summer.

What's also interesting is that the film is politically controversial in Japan (this article is now behind a login and password.  Using bugmenot.com, I got in using a login of what@yourmom.dom and a password of updude).  Miyazaki has written that that it was "a truly stupid war," which has angered Japanese nationalists who want to change Japan's constitution to allow for military aggression.

I'm wondering what company, if any, will pick up distribution for North America.  A Disney too afraid to release Song of the South hardly seems a candidate.  While Gkids has released Ghibli films, this subject matter is not aimed at their usual audience.  Perhaps some other indie distributor will pick up the film.  As there is a dearth of animated features specifically aimed at adults, I hope someone does.

Needless to say, I won't be holding my breath waiting for a North American animated feature that tackles Viet Nam, Iraq, drone warfare or the national security state.  While I can point to live action features that have questioned government policy or the official interpretation of history, North American animation is too timid.  Mustn't upset the kiddies.

(link via The Comics Reporter)

The Decline of Disney

Jaime Weinman on recent Disney events:

"But some people will miss the tradition that Walt Disney created—people who have animated for Disney, and people who aspire to. “I feel like the latest news of layoffs has shaken up a lot of animators, especially students,” says Bobby Chiu, founder of Toronto’s Imaginism Studios. “They’re all a little nervous.” And of course so will some fans. While a future dominated by Star Wars and Iron Man might make Disney more profitable, it could also mean a future where Disney releases movies that could have been made by any studio—and in many cases, used to be made by other studios. In the Lion King era, Disney was the studio that every company tried in vain to rip off. But today, “the average person can’t tell the difference between a Disney movie and a DreamWorks movie, or even a Sony movie,” says [Tom] Bancroft."

Stunted Growth

“Because there’s bad guys, and Mater, and Lightning McQueen, and SPIES!” 

- Max (age 5)

Slate recently published an article comparing how children and adults rated Pixar features.  The children focused on different things than the adults did.  The above quote refers to Cars 2, not any adult's favourite Pixar film.

The article exposes the paradox that is the family film.  It must be acceptable for small children and still keep the attention of parents.  It's a compromised enterprise from the start and I think it's the major obstacle preventing animated features from maturing.

I have nothing against children's entertainment, but imagine if every medium other than animation had to conform to the same standard.  What if every book written had to be acceptable for a five year old?  What would be the attraction for adults?

While animation fans and professionals insist that animation is a medium and not a genre, Hollywood treats it exactly like a genre.  Animated features made for the North American market are the equivalent of books read to children at bedtime.  They're all cut from the same cloth: comical fantasies suitable for young children.  They differ in terms of their characters and settings, but the content is sharply proscribed.  The majority of adults would never choose these films as entertainment for themselves; they tolerate them only because of their children.  When alone, adults are far more likely to tune in HBO than pull a Pixar film off the shelf.

For all the advances on the technical side, the computer animated features in theatres this summer would fit comfortably into the 1990s in terms of their stories.  Computer animation may have displaced drawn animation as the technique of choice, but it has fully embraced the content of animated features dating back to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Economics, as usual, control the situation.  Contemporary animated features cost anywhere from $75-200 million.  With budgets that high, nobody is willing to take a chance and so long as most of the films are profitable (and let's not forget the additional revenue from merchandise), there's no incentive to change.

Japan and Europe haven't fallen into the same trap as North America.  Their animation budgets are lower and the range of content is far wider than North America will accept.  When these films are imported, they receive critical praise but barely register at the box office.  Hollywood has trained the audience well. 

Steven Spielberg is negotiating with John Steinbeck's estate for the right to remake The Grapes of Wrath.  I'll bet that Spielberg would think it a ridiculous idea to do the remake in animation.  Most people would.  And that's the point.  If animation is a medium, it should be able to tackle any subject matter.  Animation will never develop or attract or keep great directors unless they are free to express whatever they want to, whether it's suitable for a five year old or not.

The family film will bring a lot of joy to audiences and make a lot of money for studios, but it will also keep animation a second class medium.  Pixar let Andy grow up.  Too bad the studios won't grow up themselves.

The Prophet

Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Salma Hayek is producing an animated version of Kahlil Gibran's book The Prophet.  It is an omnibus film with the wrap-around material being directed by Roger Allers (The Lion King).  Allers wrote the script as well.

The various sequences are being directed by Tomm Moore (The Secret Of Kells), Joan Gratz (Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase), Bill Plympton (Guard Dog and Your Face), Nina Paley (Sita Sings The Blues), Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat), Paul and Gaetan Brizzi (Fantasia 2000), Michal Socha (Chick) and Mohammed Harib (Freej).

The film is due for completion in the spring of 2014.

The Other Walrus and the Carpenter

Alice in Wonderland is one of those books that has been adapted many times for film. Paramount released a live action version in 1933 with an incredible cast: Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Jack Oakie, W.C. Fields, etc. For all the star power, the film is not very good.

The Walrus and the Carpenter segment in the film is animated, produced by Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising.  It's also not particularly good, but it is somewhat rare and the film is going to be on Turner Classic Movies on Friday, May 3 at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

The whole film is a curio, but if you haven't seen it, it's worth watching once.

30 Seconds of Eric Goldberg Animation

Eric Goldberg did some drawn test animation for Wreck-It Ralph. Below is Eric speaking and showing 30 seconds of his animation.  You probably want to go full screen for a better view. (Link via Bleeding Cool)

A Cat in Paris

I finally caught up with this film on DVD and I'd say it's a mixed bag.  The best thing about it is the design, which seems influenced by Lorenzo Mattotti.  It's a relief to see a drawn feature that isn't imitating a too-familiar animation style.

The next best thing is the direction, which is taut.  The suspense works well and the chase scenes are exciting.

The story, however, is typical of a TV cop show.  It's literally cops and robbers stuff.  The only ambiguity is the cat burglar, whose personality is never developed well enough to explain why he's stealing in the first place or why a child's welfare is enough to cause him to change his plans.  The real villain, Costa, is pure cardboard.  He's exactly the kind of villain that animation too often falls back on: someone who is nasty with no explanation and surrounds himself with incompetent, comedy-relief henchmen.

The woman police officer is the only character who is really motivated.  Besides needing to catch criminals for her job, she has a personal stake in catching Costa, who murdered her husband.

If all the characters had been developed to the same level, the film would be more interesting.  The graphics, direction and pacing certainly make watching it a pleasant experience and Europe continues to show that drawn animation has possibilities that North America has ignored.  But the film itself doesn't live up to its design.

This is the directors' first feature.  Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol are currently working on Phantom Boy, due for release in 2015.  While the story is another cops and robbers tale, there's enough promise in A Cat in Paris that I'm looking forward to it. 

My Neighbors, The Yamadas and Pom Poko

While I am very familiar with the Studio Ghibli films directed by Hayao Miyazaki, I have to admit that I haven't paid as much attention to Ghibli's other directors.  In the last week, I watched My Neighbors, The Yamadas and Pom Poko, both directed by Isao Takahata.  Both films, though very different, were excellent.  I wish that I'd watched them sooner.

My Neighbors, The Yamadas is basically a sitcom and based on a Japanese comic.  However, there are sitcoms and sitcoms.  Lucille Ball getting her fingers stuck in a bowling ball when Desi Arnaz is bringing home an important business contact for dinner is one kind.  The characters in I Love Lucy are well defined, but shallow.  The pleasure comes from seeing how the characters react in a given situation.  There's real craft to this kind of show, but it's not really about character.

The other kind of sitcom is one where the situations reveal more about the characters' inner workings.  Shows like M*A*S*H or Frasier are not only funny, but also dig deep to reveal their characters' humanity.  For all her talent, Lucille Ball doesn't fit into this kind of show.

On the surface, My Neighbors, The Yamadas is a series of vignettes built around a five person family: mother, father, son, daughter and grandmother.  That's not very promising material; we've seen this kind of thing hundreds of times.  However, while the character designs are far more cartoony than the typical Ghibli production, implying a shallowness to the content, the characterizations are at least as good as anything Ghibli has produced.  The film is quiet and unspectacular, but the characters are so beautifully developed that they have depth that few recent animated characters have.  What is so appealing to me is that these depths aren't revealed through overwrought drama, but through thoroughly mundane daily events.

I've always admired Bakshi's Heavy Traffic for it's combination of cartoony design and emotional depth.  My Neighbors, The Yamadas resembles Bakshi in this way and it stands in stark contrast to the current crop of cgi films that fill the screen with detail while presenting characters who are not nearly as rich.

Pom Poko is radically different film than The Yamadas in terms of design and story, but like it in having so much going on beneath the surface.  The story concerns the expansion of human suburbs destroying the forest home of the tanuki, a species that Disney has labelled racoons in their dub and subtitles, but apparently is a form of badger.  The tanuki have a rich folklore in Japan and are supposed to be shape shifters.

On the surface, this is another ecological fable, something Ghibli has dealt with on several occasions.  However, the various ways the tanuki attempt to deal with the human expansion says more about the plight of aboriginal people than it does about wildlife.  I don't know enough about the Ainu, Japan's aboriginal people, to know how this film relates to their experiences, but Pom Poko could have been written about the natives of North America.  One tanuki contingent wants to violently resist and kill the human interlopers.  There is real death in this film, unusual for a film that seems to be family-friendly.  Another contingent ends up assimilating, using their shape-shifting abilities to live as humans.  The remainder of the tanuki attempt to maintain their way of life under greatly reduced circumstances.

How unusual for a animated film to deal with issues of terrorism, assimilation and the attempt of colonised people to maintain their culture.  Name a North American animated feature that even comes close.

Pom Poko is also unusually frank by North American standards about biology.  The male tanuki are drawn with visible testicles and have no reservation about using them in their transformations as well as singing with pride about them.  Given Disney's skittishness about Song of the South, it's amazing to me that Disney released this DVD.  I can only guess it was due to a contractual obligation rather than a willingness to stand behind the content.  The film is as subversive a family entertainment as I've ever seen though I'm not aware of any flak aimed at Disney as a result.

After watching these films, I will be doing my best to see the rest of Takahata's work.  These two films have placed him high on my list of the most important animation directors.

The Rabbi's Cat

LCHDR by azmovies
This film screened in Toronto, presented by the Toronto Jewish Film Festival and The Beguiling.

The film is based on a series of comics by Joann Sfar.  Set in Algiers, where Sfar's own family once resided, it has a large cast of distinctive characters.  The widowed Rabbi has a daughter with her own circle of friends.  A cousin who travels with a lion pays a visit.  The rabbi is friends with a Muslim cleric with the same last name.  A Russian artist, a White Russian, an African waitress, the rabbi's mentor and his student are other well-developed supporting characters.

While not revealing too much of the plot, several of the characters go on a meandering road trip searching for a utopia that turns out to be a false one.  The irony is that the searchers are an ad hoc society closer to utopia than the place they are seeking, in that they are of varying religions, nationalities, races and species and get along, using words and art as their means of communication, not weapons.

The design work in the film is stronger than the animation.  There are several backgrounds that are frame-worthy.  The characters are rich and a pleasure to spend time with as they discuss life, philosophy and more mundane subjects.  However, the film lacks structure and narrative drive, as do Sfar's original comics.  The film evokes directors like Renoir and McCarey in its focus on people living and its rejection of melodrama.

I have to say that France is producing some of the more interesting animated features I've seen in the last several years.  When I attended a presentation by Gobelins, they mentioned that France releases about ten animated features a year.  While I'm sure that some of them are aimed squarely at children, it also includes films like Persepolis, Le Tableau and The Rabbi's Cat, which can be enjoyed by children, but speak to more adult concerns.  The last two are being distributed by GKIDS and will be screened in November in Los Angeles in order to be submitted for the Oscars.

1,000th Post: Where's Our Eastwood?

Since May, 2006, I have now posted 1000 times to this blog.  It's hard to believe.  I'd be the first to admit that the quality of the postings is variable.  There are some that are simply announcements or were tossed off quickly just to keep the blog from going stale.  However, there are entries I'm proud of, even if they're becoming fewer and farther between.

I once asked on this blog, "Where's our Brando?"  That discussion was about how characters in animation are conceived and executed.  I'm now going to ask, "Where's our Clint Eastwood?"

I mistakenly wrote Eastwood off years ago during his Dirty Harry period.  I had no interest in movies about right wing vigilantes.  This summer, I have watched a large number of films that Eastwood directed, and I have to say that I was very impressed and embarrassed by my earlier response to him.

What does Eastwood have to do with animation?  Unfortunately, nothing.  However, Eastwood's strengths as a director point out the shortcomings of animation directors currently working.

Eastwood is tremendously eclectic.  He moves between genres but even within genres he's not afraid to take different approaches.  The same director made a mid-western romance, The Bridges of Madison County, and a war movie from the Japanese perspective, Letters from Iwo Jima.  He's made films set in working class Massachusetts (Mystic River), in post-apartheid South Africa (Invictus), in the boxing world (Million Dollar Baby), in 1920s Los Angeles (Changeling), Savannah (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) and the old west (Unforgiven).  His film's characters have been country and western singers (Honkytonk Man), jet pilots (Space Cowboys), retired auto workers (Gran Torino), transvestites (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), escaped criminals (A Perfect World), over-hyped war heroes (Flags of our Fathers), film directors (White Hunter, Black Heart)  and reluctant psychics (Hereafter).

The range of Eastwood's films and the characters in them is immensely broad and he's sympathetic to characters from all walks of life and in all kinds of circumstances.

While live action films can be made faster than animated features and Eastwood may be an exception even in the live action world, there is nobody directing animated features who comes close to Eastwood's range.  He does have the advantage of not having to include children in his audience, even though children sometimes feature prominently in the films.  In Hereafter, a young twin has to deal with the death of his brother.  In Honkytonk Man, a young boy has to watch his uncle made poor choices and succumb to disease.  In A Perfect World, a kidnap victim comes to have feelings for his captor, who seems to understand him better than his own family.  Because Eastwood doesn't have to simplify his films to satisfy children, his characters are free to exist ambiguously, having to make choices that are not clearly good or bad, but simply the best they can do under the circumstances.  And the endings are free to be downbeat if that's what the story demands.

There's something else interesting.  Eastwood isn't a writer.  While I am an auteurist from way back, and while I applaud the existence of personal films in animation and live action, Eastwood's approach is to find a script that he finds interesting, rather than create or shape the material from scratch.  I think this input from other minds gives Eastwood something to wrestle with, rather than letting him fall into familiar patterns.  In animation these days, even if the director hasn't originated the story, the story department is likely made up of people with the same frame of reference as the director.  That, plus the economic pressure to hit the family audience and gross hundreds of millions of dollars, reduces animated features to a very narrow area.

There are animated features that have broken the mold, but they tend to come from other cultures: Persepolis (Iran and France), Spirited Away (Japan), Mary and Max (Australia), The Secret of Kells (Ireland) and The Illusionist (France and Scotland).  It's wonderful that these films were made and that we've gotten to see them in North America, but it's frustrating that North America is not capable of significant variety in animated features.

I have to admit that live action films and graphic novels hold more interest for me these days, due to their variety of subject matter and point of view, than animated features.  Currently, animated features are successful at the box office, so there is no incentive for anyone to rock the boat.  Hollywood is famous for riding trends until they die, so until animated features consistently tank at the box office, I don't expect to see a change.  However, while the medium may be advancing technically, it is pretty stagnant in other ways and that's a shame.

I wonder if we'll ever reach a point where animation has a Brando directed by an Eastwood?

Brave Story

Character A has a conflict with Character B based on pride and control. Character A's will to power accidentally does something to put Character B in jeopardy, so Character A has to rescue Character B. During the rescue, the two characters reconcile their differences and learn to accept each other.

That's the underlying structure of Brave. It's also the underlying structure of Toy Story.

We may never know the story that Brenda Chapman intended to tell before being removed from the director's chair, but the story we have is a retread. It comes in a visually attractive package with qualities that were unachievable just a few years ago, but it feels like Pixar, having rejected Chapman, reverted to something it felt comfortable with. So while Brave isn't one of the Pixar sequels already released or yet to come, it still feels overly familiar with only the environment to set it apart. A reliance on setting, rather than story, smacks of the later drawn Disney features.

There are echoes here of How to Train Your Dragon, Mulan, Brother Bear, Donald's Nephews,  Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio, The Sword in the Stone, Princess Mononoke, and The Adventures of Robin Hood. That's evidence of a story team taking the easy way out, using elements they know will work, rather than letting events grow out of the characters' actions.

Brave will make a lot of money and shows the heights the Pixar artists are capable of reaching.  However, I personally take more pleasure from films like Persepolis, The Illusionist, Spirited Away and Mary and Max than I do from Pixar's recent films. While they may not be as slick or elaborate, those films have singular points of view.

My opinion of Brave won't change anything. Mainstream animated features are too successful to let dissenting voices bother anyone with influence. But animation has once more decided to live within a cage of its own making and is happy to stay put, safe and secure.  Frankly, it's a waste of talent.

Maybe Not So Weak?

I haven't seen this film, but Movie Morlocks, the official blog of Turner Classic Movies, has a review and stills from the French animated feature A Cat in Paris. It looks like a film I'd like to see, though I have no idea if it will get a North American release outside of Los Angeles. In any case, I will keep an eye out for it.

Animated Tatsumi

Yoshihiro Tatsumi is a manga artist who is the founder of the gekiga movement, one which took manga into the area of adult content. In some ways his work resembles film noir, dwelling on desperate outcasts who are driven by their emotions to behave in socially unacceptable ways. Tatsumi's work has been published in English by Drawn and Quarterly.

Eric Khoo, a Singaporean director, is adapting several Tatsumi works into an animated feature film. The only information I've found on the film is here.

I've admired Tatsumi's work for years and hope that this film will be worthy of it.

Tatsumi in Toronto in 2009 for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.

Pixar and Miyazaki

"At the same time, though, Miyazaki's presence points up the limitations of Pixar, which are the limitations of American commercial entertainment generally. Pixar landed on this list, and in the penultimate slot, not strictly on its own merits (which are, as I've said, considerable), but because of its imaginative dominance of family entertainment, and its capacity to shape future moviegoers' sense of what animation (and entertainment) should be. Pixar represents the best of what American commercial filmmaking is. But Miyazaki shows what might be possible without Pixar's inhibitions (or constraints, take your pick).

"Factor out the few dark and disturbing moments in Pixar's films this decade (there haven't been many, really) and you're looking at a body of work that's fairly easy for even the youngest children to grasp and process, and ultimately not challenging compared to Miyazaki. In Pixar films, good characters sound (and usually look) conventionally lovable. Good and evil are clearly defined, and no "good" character's goal is left unmet. And no potentially confusing or disturbing apparition, incident or twist is left unexplained for long.

"Contrast this with Miyazaki's much freer and deeper approach to family entertainment, and you start to see the aesthetic gulf between his work and Pixar's (and, by extension, between the splendid array of animation that thrives internationally and the homogeneous, Pixar-inspired type that dominates U.S. screens). Miyazaki's films are just as visually imaginative as Pixar's and often more so — more painterly and less beholden to the rules of "realism." More importantly, they are never content to define characters as good or evil, or even mostly good or mostly evil, and be done with it. Through a canny combination of sharp draftsmanship, clean animation and simple dialogue, Miyazaki throws children (and often adults) off balance, leaving them unsure what to make of a certain character or situation and forced to grapple with what Miyazaki is doing and showing."

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