Unusually unforgettable...I feel like cooking

Rating: 9/10 (13 March 2009)

Maybe it's possible for anyone to cook, but we can't deny that there would have to be a clear agreement on what the expression 'cooking' means. If we're talking about the kind of cooking Remy -the main character of "Ratatouille"- does, it certainly becomes unimaginable that, excuse my repetition, "Anyone can cook" (the title of Chef Gusteau's book and Remy's inspiration). But as food critic Anton Ego says, "great cooking can come from unexpected places". And I still haven't mentioned Remy is a rat.
Brad Bird's "Ratatouille" is the most unusual of Pixar's productions and one of the strangest animated full-length pictures ever made. Unlike Pixar's previous achievements, it doesn't a hero in a crusade, with a final objective in mind. Remy wants to be a cook and expresses his desire to the amazement of others (his sense of smell is so good that he becomes the 'poison detector' of his family's food, and that's as far as his father recognizes his talent), but it's not the film's overall goal, where everything is usually directed. Remy doesn't even make friends during his journey (to call it a name), so we don't get a wide gallery of characters; only Chef Gusteau (deceased and an imaginary friend that can't really help the rat) and Linguini, a young guy who's Gusteau's unrecognized son and ends up cooking the dishes Remy's always dreamed of in the most unexpected of situations, thus providing a sort of conflict for the movie and the figure of a villain in Chef Skinner.
All of this takes place in 'Gusteau's', the restaurant of the deceased chef, which is almost the only scenario of the film, that Bird exploits without rest (watch one scene in which plenty of rats are hiding in the kitchen and try their best not to be noticed: it's classic animation, classic Disney). Because it's not much what the Bird and the movie need to create an instant classic; everything is reduced to basics and works. One relationship (between Remy and Linguini) and the struggles it involves for each one to get what he wants.
It's also in this aspect that "Ratatouille" stands out as one of the most original animation pieces ever made. We've seen animals talking to each other a thousand times, and in a lot of occasions we've seen them trying to talk to humans, but humans never understand. However, even when they might miraculously get human help to achieve their goals, their success occurs entirely in the animal world, wherever that is, among animals. We never forget everything is fiction, but in "Ratatouille" Remy's dream comes true (with human help) in the real world; in France, in Paris.
I liked "Happy Feet" because Mumble danced along and helped his race because of his own merit. But those penguins saw humans as 'aliens', and didn't understand the weapons they used to harm them (in fact, they even saw some of them as gifts). Remy and his family know what men do to rats, but deep inside this 'little chef' believes that there's some good in the world. And he makes it throughAmong humans.