as they say, Pixar hits it out of the park again!

Rating: 10/10 (31 May 2009)

Some, and you know who you are if you're reading this, may come across the IMDb page for Pixar's Up (and no, it's not Up! with an exclamation point, as that belongs to the 1976 Russ Meyer X-rated flick), and turn your nose up at it as just another Disney and/or Pixar kids flick. "An old man with balloons tied to his house flying around with an annoying kid, not enough "art" for my taste" (or something similar to that if not as snobbish). I want to relay an example for you that may get you excited: this is for Pixar a riff on Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. You might remember that crazy little movie where Klaus Kinski, a dreamer obsessed with opera, decides he has to build an opera house in the middle of the South American jungle, so in order to accomplish this he has to drag his big freighter-ship across a mountain to the other side. It is a leap of faith, but we take it because it's led by a filmmaker with a compelling sense of telling a story with an equally compelling protagonist. Balloons tied to a house, ship across a mountain, not much difference if you ask me, just the degree of the ambition.
But it's not enough to compare it to Herzog, or even really try to. Pixar's Up, directed by Pete Doctor, is original in its intent to make a serious adventure movie that starts off as something quite mature, makes it big leap to kids, and then straddles that line like that guy who crossed the twin towers on the tightrope in the 70s. Take your adjective, this is beautiful, audacious, heartbreaking, heartrending, sublime, hilarious, surreal, inventive film-making, and it doesn't talk down to any age group in its story of an old man, Carl Frederickson, who fulfills his and his late-wife's dream of having a house on a hilltop called Paradise Falls that their favorite explorer as kids flew to in South America. If you're a kid you'll not get any tasteless jokes (there's one poo joke that actually works since it's brief and, dare I say it, funny as hell), and it helps to get you prepared for some of the hardships that may come in life, like, well, the possibility of not having kids and losing your loved one in old age. Rare does it happen that you'll cry in the first ten minutes of a Disney family film anymore. Here's the rarity.
Up is also in the tradition of wild fantasy, like a tale out of the Lost World mixed in with a tale out of Pixar's idols, Studio Ghibli. One could definitely see the kinds of characters like Carl, Russel and the hero-turned-villain explorer Charles Muntz in a Miyazaki film (as Ebert so thankfully noted in his review), but they also remain true to the Pixar tradition that's given them their distinction. They're never card-board cut-outs, and even when faced with certain plot elements reminiscent of Disney fare, such as with the big bird, "Kevin", in the jungle they have to help get back to her kids, or the (insane/perfect) comic relief of the dogs that talk with the collars around their necks, its dealt with the kind of love and care that should be given in solid storytelling. Nothing is too frivolous in Up, and there's an undercurrent of sadness to both Carl, for what he's lost and has to achieve without his late wife he's known since childhood, and for Russell lacking a father figure or real mother (this last part is handled really well, watch for "Phyllis" mentioned).
Oh, and I forgot, it's animated in the usual tradition of Pixar fare: awesomely. Following on the heels of their arguable top-top masterpiece WALL-E, Up features the ordinary (inside a house, an old man) and the extraordinary (the birds, the dogs, the juxtaposition of a floating house with an airship, something else out of say Howl's Moving Castle) with delicacy and subtly while at the same time grandiosity and the vibrancy possible in the medium. I could go on and on, about how howlingly funny it is or how touching it is in the little moments. But make no mistake, Up is modern film art, even if it doesn't fit into your local art-house cinema. Take the (well-behaved/respectful) kids, take the old folks, take your rotten punk kid. It is what it is- squirrel! Good stuff.