Memento Mori

Rating: 9/10 (16 August 2014)

Disney characters often face death, and yet death itself is usually an anomaly for them, a breach made by villainy in their happy worlds. Toy Story 3, however, might be the first major Hollywood animated feature more or less explicitly *about* death. The premise has the protagonists terrified by the prospect of their now seventeen-year-old owner Andy going to college and getting rid of them. They know they are running out of time: even when they end up as gifts in a daycare run by a dictator-like teddy bear and attempt to escape, the specter of the garbage bin looms over them. It's no coincidence the last act features escathological imagery like the hellish fire of the incinerator or the heavenly sky of the last shot.
Not that Toy Story 3 is bleak; it's a good-natured roller-coaster ride with quirky characters, creative set-pieces, witty dialogues - a funny tale of flamenco-dancing toy astronauts, self-absorbed Ken dolls and happy endings. Still, this unique perspective lends it a special pathos; good movies can simply be well-crafted, but great movies need to be ABOUT something. Pixar has been tackling with serious themes (diversity, paternity, senility, abandonment) ever since the first Toy Story: this is one of their boldest projects yet. Let's hope they keep pushing the envelope - to infinity and beyond.
8,5/10