Traveling far, without stepping outside

Rating: Null/10 (4 October 2015)

To simplify complex things without losing their complexity is an utmost art. So I marvel at what they made work here and how deeply illuminating of life with such simple pieces, toys essentially. I believe it will go far in estimation. It's not intellectual - but it's driven by surpassing intellectual ability. It's inspirational - but colors everything on the way out with something that goes beyond "inspiration".
We have the animated ride about overcoming obstacles to be there for someone, the ride is great fun, the vistas imaginative; a lot of care went into making the inner architecture simple in textures and "locations", with childlike order. But the ride is transferred inside the mind of a little girl and they begin to build something else there.
Five emotions inside the heroine's head vying for controls of life, directing a "movie". External reality seen through screens and "cameras" that project cinematic light that carries memory. Memories stored in gleaming orbs that contain them. Colors associated with emotions. All this very simple, it goes without saying, that in other hands or other contexts it would appear reductive.
But the way it simplifies complex life inside the heroine's head to simple essentials that we can accept as building material for ours, how well they tied inner and outer so that I found myself nodding every time the bumbling "emotions" translated as believable behavior outside - all the different pieces come together by the end to form such a strong mechanism, simple without feeling like we have missed any nuance in the process. And all this as someone's soul at stake.
So far so good, fun, vibrant, intelligent. Maybe the best Pixar already. And then they turn the gear once more and color everything - it's one of the most poignant endings I've seen, it floored me and I'm someone who doesn't give to just anyone the power to touch me.
It illuminates - a happy memory only possible because of a sad one that preceded and these as part of the same flow - sadness that must touch all things - sadness that is joy and vice versa - multiply colored orbs now, each one a small gem of inferred ambiguous life. Each one a simple piece by itself. It has created a simple order in the soul, torn it and created another, simple but richer. With other animation films, we lose too much of our nuance in the process of simplifying, not here. The apogee is the lasting impression of seeing myself. Reflections released from their orbs and allowed to float would have a farflung (Malickian) view. But it's what we put into them from our "orbs" that lets us see. We would like our inner murk to be this simple so we accept it and are better off for it, nurturing our ability to see ourselves simply. To simplify complex things without losing their complexity is an utmost art. How much more so the art of simplifying ourselves without losing our complexity?