Movie: "Up" from Pixar - 'Give me peace of mind to trust, and don't forget the rest of us.'

[timepiececlock]

If you move past the fact that the only female character with speaking lines disappears 15 minutes into a 97 minute movie (and that includes the short that opened it) and that it creates a world entirely devoid of women or girls except as backdrops or objects of loss (not even the frelling dogs)--and I'm sure we'll all move past that because it's a familiar hurdle with Pixar--then I can report that this is a beautiful, moving film.

It's a little darker than WALL-E, and a little sadder. I cried at two separate points; not a lot, but my eyes were significantly wet and I had to wipe them. It's still an uplifting film, still full of wonder and adventure and grace, but there's no denying that the emotion of loss permeates this story.

There's something reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki's work when you watch it: gorgeous vistas, brilliant colors, and sky. So much sky! Balloons, dirigibles, airplanes! And old person and a young person on an adventure together, experiencing the wonder of flight. It's not quite as funny or cute as WALL-E, but I'm not sure it's supposed to be.

There's no doubt that the Pixar studio has some of the finest writers and storytellers in the film industry today. Now they only need to live up to that potential, and open their magical world to the rest of us. It looks, as always, like a beautiful place to play.


WARNING: COMMENTS NOW CONTAIN MOVIE SPOILERS!

Comments

[goldy-dollar.livejournal.com]

I really loved 'Up' but after the first ten minutes of "yay, Ellie, she's great, excellent!"... female characters entirely disappeared. I think Carl's love for her was beautiful, but I still feel like there easily could have been more female character for girls to identify with and there... weren't.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Yes. I was disappointed that the dog, Doug, wasn't female. Then I was hoping the mean dog with the broken translator would surprise us with having a female voice. Like, I was *hoping*, you know? As a desperate grasp for something. I mean Whoopi Goldberg voiced the lead hyena in Lion King. But the only female character was one who didn't speak, and even when they go back to the town at the end, all but one of the Wilderness Adventure kids was was male, and the one that I'm not sure about could have been either. The club announcer was male, too. Why not just call them Boy Scouts if they're all going to be boys, anyway?

Anyway...it didn't ruin the movie for me, but it certainly irritated me. I knew going in that the boy, the old man, and the dog were male. I didn't know that every single voiced character in the cast would be male! And I barely count Kevin as a female character, because Kevin--while important--was not as pivotal to changing events as the the two old men, the kid, or the talking dogs. And she wasn't personified the way the dogs were.