Don’t be surprised to see some variant of the terrible pun contained in this headline screaming out from every newspaper come Monday morning. The Oscars are a’coming on Sunday, and every eye is on the Best Picture race, where the only question is, “Was Avatar too successful for its own good?”
This is a boring question, and one I don’t care about in the slightest. I think the far more interesting race is the Animated Feature Film category, which is positively packed full of great movies. Most people probably assume Pixar will take the statue, same as they almost always do whenever they put out a film.
Most people, though, have not seen The Secret of Kells. The Academy voters have.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll do this in an orderly fashion. The nominees, please.
UP
You’ve probably already seen this movie, but a quick synopsis is only fair. The first 15-minute short film tells the story of a couple from age 6 all the way into their advanced years. The second story starts after the death of the woman — the man, in an attempt to save his house from developers and to go on adventure he’d always yearned for, he attaches a bunch of balloons and sails his house away. But first, a young, vaguely ethnic, possibly autistic child hitches a ride in an effort to earn his “helping the elderly” badge. They travel to a waterfall in South America, meet an old explorer, and hilarity generally ensues. Especially with the help of the talking dog sidekicks.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Animal corpses are jerked around on strings like marionettes. At least, that’s what they must have been shooting for as a visual style. George Clooney’s in it, because, well, why not?
Coraline
Based on a Neil Gaiman novel of the same name, Coraline tells the story of an Other World that traps the souls of children. It’s got a bit of a creepy Tim Burton-esque vibe, but toned down slightly and the stop-motion doesn’t have the same rough edges as traditional claymation. The story is solid, the visuals are beautiful and complex — overall, a great film.
The Princess and the Frog
Disney’s first movie with a black princess was probably guaranteed to get a nod. This is a fairly predictable princess story with a twist, where the girl kisses the ogre and turns into an ogre herself. Oh wait, that was Shrek. This one’s frogs. And black people. But the black person is a frog for a vast majority of the movie, so no worries.
The Secret of Kells
Set in the ninth century, this is an animated movie about books (fun premise, right?). A young monk, Brendan, is being brought up by his uncle, an abbot, who used to be a manuscript illustrator but has since lost his way and focuses insead on defending the island against the vikings. One day, a master illustrator comes and teaches Brendan the beauty of the art. Brendan also goes into the forest, where he meets a forest spirit who helps him learn about the world outside the abbey. The animation is absolutely amazing; the best way I can describe it is as mixed media. Truly has to be seen to be understood.
Coraline is a good movie, but it just didn’t have the resonance it needed. Movies can be successful shooting for a variety of different responses. Cars went for a fun, popcorn-style feel with a bit of pathos thrown in with the romance & Route 66. Monster House (a vastly underrated animated movie) played on the childish fears of the unknown and the dark, successfully drawing in the viewer. Coraline almost seems to strike two chords at once, producing a bit of disharmony. Coraline (the character) is pretty explicitly not the goofy, carefree child you’d expect to be drawn into her own imagination. Her look, aided by the overall visual style of the movie, is almost Gothic, and lends itself to a morose mood, which is not something generally associated with children who enjoy make-believe. It’s a discordant note that’s sounded throughout the movie — not loud enough to drown out all the great aspects of the film, but just enough to keep it from being considered “the best” this year has to offer.
UP is a solid movie, but it has some pretty gaping flaws. The initial ten minutes of the film depicting the life of the old man and his wife might be the best short film I’ve ever seen, but it’s so wildly different from the rest of the movie that it might as well be one of the Pixar shorts. This also has a huge impact on the pacing, which, if you laid it out from beginning to end, would look a lot like a short-track speedskating race – crashes all over the place followed by short bursts of blistering speed. And no one I’ve met has disagreed when I said the movie could be half an hour shorter without noticing anything was gone.
The Princess and the Frog is an annoying movie that probably deserves a post in its own right. While I appreciate trying to improve upon the dearth of diversity among Disney princesses, this wasn’t the way to go about it. Every other Disney princess movie has the girl a product of a rich family – not this one. Every other Disney princess movie has the princess stay, y’know, HUMAN for the entire movie – not this one (making her skin color relatively superfluous, really). As the animated GIF of that small black child would mouth, “That’s racist!” Overall, the animation is okay (better than the direct-to-DVD sequels of the past few years), but there’s nothing about this movie that stands out. Well, except the racism.
Most people (myself included) had not even heard of Kells before it received an Oscar nomination. It played like one weekend in Los Angeles to qualify, then the studio sent out screeners to every possible voter. But it wasn’t nominated because of a publicity campaign; it got the nod because it’s a great movie.
As with Wall-E, Kells feels like a completely different kind of film. It’s an animated movie that doesn’t rely upon the medium for the integrity of its story. If you think about animated movies like Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs or Monsters vs. Aliens, they’re based on stories that absolutely could not be represented properly in a live-action movie. They’re cartoons. But for both Kells and Wall-E, though it would have been difficult, a live-action adaptation is feasible. But the quality, style and richness of their animation adds a layer of depth to the story that could not have been achieved any other way.
Kells tells a somewhat mystical story that still seems very grounded in reality. The visuals help tell the tale almost as much as the dialogue, and the music (Celtic, the greatest of all musical genres) only adds to the overall feeling. What you get from Kells is a complex story, jumbling around a coming-of-age tale, a “be-true-to-yourself tale,” and even a lesson about the importance and majesty of art.
This is not to disparage any of the nominees (save for Mr. Fox), but Kells really gets you to consider the nature of animation, and the different forms you can blend to create a coherent visual narrative.To me, the Best Animated Feature should not be just the best movie that happens to be animated, but the movie that best demonstrates how animation can be used to tell a story. In this respect Coraline and Kells both excel, but Kells is the clear winner due to its originality and overall blend of every aspect of animated storytelling (script, images, music).
But the Academy has not yet seen fit to outfit me with a vote, so these are merely unofficial observations. There’s still every chance UP could walk away with the statue, but I’m hoping the increased scrutiny brought about by Avatar’s outlandish success will foment a distaste for the big-money winners. Instead, the voters will hopefully bring an increased scrutiny of artistic achievement, thus opening a hole for Kells or Coraline to get some much-deserved recognition.
Now if only we could get somebody to vote for The Hangover for Best Picture ….