Hyper Reality

Rating: Null/10 (15 July 2007)

Its easy to see how this story came about. Animators are puppeteers first. So if you asked an animator to come up with a story, naturally you will find two features: one would involve two on-screen characters, one the animator of the other. We have many jokes associated with how imperfectly the on-screen animator (our hero) works his puppet at first. Incidentally, this movie is preceded in the theater by a short: "Lifting." It features a novice "animator" of precisely this type, being graded. Notice the infinite panel of switches in that short.
Count on Pixar to find yet another way to fold introspection into the form. This is elaborated by the character of a critic. We see him first in a coffin-like office. He's only capable of destruction it seems. Voiced by Peter O'Toole in a stentorian voice-about-theater, he likes what he sees (tastes). Its a great trick you see. Usually this trick is in the form of an on screen audience watching some sort of climactic performance. When they cheer, we do too, as we become folded into the story.
In this case, that is handled by a place made for us and occupied by "the critic." So we have a place in the story for the animator and the viewer. What else? We'll need a place for the animation, right? And we have it.
It appears first as a book by a now dead, corpulent chef. This book, natch, comes alive. Look how "Ted's law" is followed: the distance between the "real" world of ourselves and the animated movie is the same as that from the animated movie and the "living cartoon" within. Its an explicit fold. And the fact that the inner cartoon has an open, personal feel to it conveys to the personal feel we are intended to have with the Pixar movie.
So these three folds: in the story is the story, the animator and the viewer. And the introductory short sets this up too.
Having said that, there are a couple noteworthy segments. In terms of the actual craft, Pixar has two areas in which it innovates.
One of these in how space is handled. The Pixar guys realized early on that if the three dimensions are going to be modeled anyway, you can zip the camera around in new ways. Early in the game they did this in an overt way. That's been picked up by the summer action films, the best of them, including the Depp pirate business. (Another Disney project benefiting from the eye motion lab.)
You can see this throughout the project: there are both all sorts of well managed, unusual perspectives, and a constant overlay of new shots. By this I mean that every shot is just a little different than what you've seen. Just a little canted. A little closer perhaps. A little movement that a physical camera cannot do well.
But there are some big production sequences as well. I'm particularly interested in architectural water. Its a unique cinematic challenge. Its not one done well in animation because the mathematics of simply making water look real is daunting. Pixar has done what needs to be done: they have made water hyper-real, dramatic. There's a sequence here that is something like that Pinnochio sequence of 67 years ago with the whale. But its so new and fresh and exciting. Look at the water and see that it has a million tiny agents all seeking to be angry  to do damage but never reaching consensus on just how to attack. This alone is worth the admission.
There's another thing that is uniquely Pixar: how characters move. Its a tricky thing, that. As with the water, it is not ever enough that they move realistically. You can make realistic movements by outfitting actors with sensors and translating that to the created beings. It captures nuance. And if you have a particularly skilled source actor, he or she will move not as a real person would, but as an actor would to convey reality. Real isn't real. We need hyperreal in special ways to get- read the reality.
The credits of this movie ostentatiously say that ""Our Quality Assurance Guarantee: 100% Genuine Animation! No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts were used in the production of this film." You can see it. We are entering a new era where both the cameras and the characters can use dramatic motions not possible with human eyes and bodies.
Its a challenge for viewers. What do we accept as embodiment? So far, the answer is that the non-natural movements must always be in the service of conveying or seeming natural. But I imagine at the speed this is developing, we may soon see something more.
One character note: Colette is voiced by the remarkable Janeane Garofalo. As with our hero, she has that French nose. As the love develops between these two, she becomes decidedly more sexy, both in voice and appearance. Its the appearance that I remark on here. Its all done with postures and a motorcycle. That motorcycle is there in part to allow her to bend forward, and change her lower anatomy.
These folks at Pixar are good. Darn good. Glad its Steve Jobs as the creative inspiration instead of that evil other guy.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.