Top Ten Animated Films with Guest Writer Tucker Meijer: #7 Critics' Take
Here are Tucker’s take on my choice, Ratatouille, and my take on his choice, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse. Below are our original posts.
Tucker’s Take on Jeremy’s #7: Anomalisa
Lots of films have tackled the idea of isolation and loneliness, but few do it as masterfully as Anomalisa. I definitely agree with Jeremy in his review; this is a movie that is so wonderful at what it does BECAUSE it is animated. The dullness and sterility of the world in which Michael lives would not have the same effect had it had been live action (as a long aside and a plug for The Incredibles, a film that will appear later on my list: there’s a sequence in the beginning of the film in which Bob Parr is sitting in his office, bored and fed up with his work. The entire scene is washed out and dull – another example of animation’s incredible ability to “dull” down a world to wonderful effects. But back to Anomalisa).
Anomalisa is a visual experience that immerses the audience in sepia tones and near-identical characters. It’s an atmospheric effect that works wonders to bring Michael’s world to life (it feels funny to use “life” here, since for most of the movie, the world feels anything but). It’s also an auditory experience, which is apparent from the film’s first sequence. It’s a barrage of sound that eventually all bleeds together until we realize it’s all the same voice.
It makes sense that there would be such an emphasis on sound. After all, the film was conceived from a play by the same name. Carter Burwell, the composer of the theater festival in which Anomalisa debuted, called the collection of plays “a concert for music and text, or a set of ‘sound plays.” This comes through in the film as well, with a beautiful sound design that coveys sadness, loneliness, and isolation.
Part of the film’s strength is in how committed the voice actors are to their roles. David Thewis is the perfect Michael, at times mournful, at times completive, at times forceful. He is the embodiment of an outsider: not only does his British accent make him stand out, but he also struggles to comport himself in his lonely world. His profession as a customer service expert is the perfect touch of irony and allows us to understand Michael a little bit better; he’s in a job that he can’t even pretend to enjoy.
When Lisa arrives (played by a shy, enchanting Jennifer Jason Leigh), his world is upended and so is the audiences’. Lisa breaks up the monotony and humdrum nature of Michael’s existence. As an anomaly in Michael’s life, she forces him to confront his existence, both how he acts and how those around him perceive him. He is sad and she is decidedly not and together, they make an unlikely pair that you cannot help but root for by the end.
As Jeremy notes in his review, it is really a vehicle for Charlie Kaufman’s brilliance. His characters, often confronted by loneliness and isolation, often seem like they’ll finally “get it.” Jeremy is right in noting that this is the case with Anomalisa – you think that Michael will finally correct himself but he never does. It’s sad but it also makes sense for Michael’s character.
Anomalisa is by no means an easy viewing experience. I found myself somewhat emotionally drained by the end. But this shouldn’t be a barrier to entry. Anomalisa is hard to watch. But it’s also a wonderful meditation on loneliness and that, sometimes, can be a cathartic experience.
Jeremy’s Take on Tucker’s #7: Up
Although, I too have a sweet fondness for Up, I have to admit, I don’t have Tucker’s emotional connection with it. I can feel the love in his review for a movie that continues to this day to make him cry. Indeed, the opening montage of Up is one of Pixar’s best collective ten minutes they’ve ever put on screen. Pixar’s bravery in allowing the audience to experience such real and raw emotions of a life of joy and loss in the beginning of a story that takes such a fantastical turn are breathtaking. The emotional punch of the first opening minutes seems like the film won’t be able to match it, especially when it becomes filled with the fantasy of a house rising in through the air, lifted solely by balloons, and yet, it all works. Well… most of it.
One of the great things about Pixar is they are always willing to push the envelope in terms of storytelling. They, of course, have also pushed the envelope in terms of animation. With Up, one of the elements I love about the movie is that the main characters are an old man and an Asian young boy. Neither of these characters are typically the protagonists of stories in Hollywood. Throughout the film, both Carl and Russell are not portrayed as being beyond their capabilities, for the most part: Carl, an old man, with his cane and a lot of gum shun and wit; and Russell, an eager young boy, naive, but curious, and a boy scout. The two make the perfect odd couple for this adventure through a strange jungle. That they would grow together into a father / son relationship (Russell has a distant father and Carl lost his and Ellie’s child to a miscarriage) does not seem likely in the beginning, but is the most realistic element of the ending. When Carl goes up on stage to present Russell with his badge, indeed, like Tucker my heart swelled.
The character I find it funnily enough Tucker didn’t talk about was Dug, considering that his review began with reflection on the first movie he ever cried in was Eight Below. Dug is one of the great dogs ever to appear on screen. Obviously, he is not a “real” dog, but the script gives Dug a running stream of thoughts vocalized through his collar, which becomes the best representation I’ve ever seen of how the mind of a dog - squirrel!!! Dug brings another joy to the film in that he finds companionship with both Russell and Carl. He is the glue that brings the boy and old man together. Dug provides a loveable sidekick to Carl, to soften him up so he is able to embrace Russell.
I really like how Tucker spoke about the house and its representation as Ellie herself. I know that Carl does indeed talk to the house, but it is a connection that I’ve never really analyzed or thought about. It indeed is another stroke of genius that so much emotion can be placed in an object. In thinking about other similar moments of an object coming to represent someone so heartfeltly, I am at a loss to think of a better one.
With all this being said, I think narratively, Up is one of the Pixar films that ends up suffering from being created in the time of superhero films. Peter Docter has come into his own as a director at Pixar. I admit that I am not a fan of his first film Monster’s Inc, which has an incredible world with an unfortunately rather simplistic narrative. Here though, he comes more so into his own, which he would finally do with Inside Out. In Up, Peter adds such amazing characters (which I felt his first film was lacking) to an amazing world. In the end though, Peter reverts to such cliche notions of the third act fight. Superhero movies did not start the age old cliche of an ending fight, but in their popularity and abundance, they have trivialized it to the point where a scene that is supposed to be moving at the end of Superman Returns instead transforms into a scene with a lack of regard for the countless people dying in the destruction of the city, and even worse, ends up being dull, boring, and overly long. Here, Up also chooses to end with a fight.
Carl, always wanting to go on an adventure, finally gets one, and therefore, ends in traditional fight between the good-guy and bad-guy. The humorous bent on this traditional fight is that the good-guy and bad-guy are both old men. The joke works for a minute, but then grows old as the fight continues. When they launch the pun of dog’s in airplanes so they can have a “dogfight” fantasy finally overrides the reality of the film for me. It is here that I admit I stopped caring for the time being. Never was I in belief that either Carl or Russell’s life were in danger. For the first time, I thought, I’m watching a movie rather than experiencing a story.
Up is the classic example of a movie that works so well till the third act and then ends in a let down. That being said, it’s still a great movie.
Tucker’s #7: Up
The first movie that I cried during was Eight Below. In that 2006 movie starring Paul Walker, a group of dogs are stuck in the Antarctic during a snowstorm. As the movie progresses, the dogs adventure across the frozen wasteland and, unfortunately, (also spoiler alert) not all of them make it back.
As I mentioned in an earlier review, I did not grow up with a dog, but this movie absolutely wrecked me. It was the first time that I can remember being emotionally struck by a film. Now, crying in movies is a common occurrence for me; I cry at sad moments, I cry at happy moments, and sometimes, I cry when I see a beautifully composed shot.
So, when I found myself sobbing at the end of the famous montage that begins Up, I knew that I was in for something special. That montage demonstrates many of the ways that Up succeeds as a movie; in just a few minutes, director Pete Doctor manages to tell the story of a marriage in such a compelling and intimate way that it can turn me into a sobbing mess.
It’s such a fitting way to open the movie, since at its core, Up is about that marriage and how it persists even after Ellie’s death. This manifests in Carl’s relationship with the house; he loves it because, for him, the house is Ellie. I never thought I would feel so much for an inanimate object, until the scene when the house catches on fire. Carl’s desperation upon seeing his house - the last vestige of Ellie - start to burn, is heart wrenching.
The emotional investment in the house pays off in the final shot of the film, which I won’t divulge here for risk of spoiling a moment that is a beautiful and poignant conclusion to the film. The final image is one that sticks with me as a shining example of how to properly conclude a character arc.
Carl’s relationship with the house (and, by extension, with Ellie) is wonderfully portrayed, but so is his relationship with the other characters in the film, especially with Russell. The Russell/Carl dynamic runs the risk of becoming a cliché: a cranky old man becomes less cranky because of his relationship with a kid who teaches him stuff (to be honest, the film does occasionally verge into the “okay, we’ve seen this before” territory). But it’s saved by the organic growth between the two characters; they both remain true to their characters all the way up until the end of the movie.
There are as many moving parts to Up as there are balloons attached the Carl’s house. As I’ve been discussing, the relationships in the film (Carl/Ellie, Carl/Russell, Russell/Kevin) are my favorite parts of the film, but I also love how the movie deals with the idea of your heroes, the ones you interact with everyday and the ones you look up to from afar.
The movie begins with a young Carl idolizing the explorer Charles Muntz. This love and respect of Charles is what spurs Carl on to fly to Paradise Falls in the first place. As the movie goes on, it’s revealed that Muntz is actually the villain, a realization that pains Carl. It’s a devastating moment when Carl realizes that this person whom he loved and looked up to is not the person he thought he was. Muntz is juxtaposed with Carl, who becomes a hero to Russell. Unlike Muntz, Carl did not have his life televised, didn’t make national headlines for his adventuring, and didn’t create a whole colony of talking dogs. But that doesn’t matter to Russell, who still looks up to and loves Carl by the end of the movie. It’s a poignant reminder that our heroes don’t have to be the people we see on TV; they can be the people we’re surrounded by, day in and day out.
I still cry when I watch Up, speaking to its emotional heft. It’s a beautiful movie and one that I deeply, deeply love.
Jeremy’s #7: Anomalisa
First of all, let me begin this review by posting a disclaimer. Anomalisa is a surprisingly realistic exploration of isolation and sexuality. As a result, yes, sexuality and sex are discussed and shown in ways that would possibly warrant a harsher rating for a live action film. Since it is an animated movie, there is actually a paradoxical ease with which Charlie Kaufman can explore these themes without any real nudity, and instead, use artistic nudity, meant not for lustful entertainment purposes, but rather honest reflection. So... for those people who believe that animated films are solely made for children unless they are pornographic, this is a serious film about adult loneliness and attempts to connect which include sex.
In making a list of the best animated films of all time, I knew when I sat down to review great films to consider that I hoped to include a 3D stop motion picture. I thought about a number of them. I adore Nick Park’s creations; Wallace and Gromit as well as his other films like Chicken Run. Then, there is the Halloween classic operetta The Nightmare Before Christmas, which is one of the most visually iconic films ever created. I also thought of Wes Anderson’s masterpiece The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which made me finally realize that all of his films, even his live action ones, are indeed animated. But, when I rewatched all of them, the film that stuck with me more than any other was my choice for the best film of 2015, Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa.
In cinema today, there is whatever every other filmmaker is doing, and then, there is what Charlie Kaufman is up to. One of the only screenwriters in history ever to be as well-known as the directors of his films. Charlie has worked with such masters as Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and yet, these movies as known as Charlie Kaufman films, not Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry films. Charlie Kaufman is perhaps our last original storyteller. He has turned his storytelling to the true final frontier, the human mind.
This is not a typical animated film; it’s not even a typical 3D stop motion picture. Rather than creating a beautiful world like Nightmare Before Christmas or a joyous emotional landscape of a town in Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, or bring a beloved children’s story to life (Fantastic Mr. Fox), what Charlie tries to accomplish with animated puppets in Anomalisa is to visualize a realistic world; to capture the dull and boring routine of life.
The story begins with a cacophony of noise. Lots of different people having conversations, and yet, in the darkness of the screen, we realize they’re all the same voice. We begin wondering is this someone’s thoughts? Or are these memories of conversations they have had throughout their life? Then suddenly we see our first image. It’s a glorious almost heavenly sky, glowing, but distant. Eventually the camera reveals that it is merely the vista through a window in a plane where our main character, Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) sits. He obviously has a lot on his mind. He pulls out a letter and when the voice saying what is on the letter is heard, it sounds like everyone else’s voice. The letter laced with expletives sounds like it’s from a female lover, but the voice is that of Tom Noonan. Tom Noonan voices every character in the movie save Michael and one other. To make sure the attentive viewer understands, they overlay the image of the woman telling him off. It is indeed a woman with the same voice as everyone else.
Michael is suffering from a rare psychological delusion known as the Fregoli Delusion. I didn’t know the definition of this delusion, but upon seeing the movie, I began to explore questions about it. Michael stays at the Fregoli hotel. More on this delusion later.
Michael is a sad sack of a person. He is a foreigner as is established in the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel. Always an outsider. He sounds distinct compared to everyone else because he is British, although he tries to cover that accent. Taking a look at his name, he is called Stone because he has lost the ability to have emotions in life. He is a middle-aged man who is going through marital problems. So much so that when he calls his wife to tell her he has landed and made it to the hotel, he desperately wants her not to hand the phone to their son, who is dressed like a pirate and wants to know what present his father will bring him back. He can’t even bring himself to love his son. During this time, he looks out the window and sees a man masturbating to his computer before realizing he has been seen and hides. Indeed, loneliness seems to be all around.
In desperation, he calls another ex-girlfriend, one who he left for apparently no reason years ago. They meet in the bar of the Fregoli and it goes horribly. He should have known it would… he couldn’t recognize her voice on the phone.
The Fregoli Delusion is when one ceases to be able to recognize individuals. All people become one person in different disguises. This is perhaps the loneliest idea I’ve ever heard of. Kaufman replicates that idea not only in the all of the voices of characters being the same, but also, in the visuals of his film. The hotel is an endless hallway of the same image repeated over and over. The room is an indistinct hotel room, like any hotel room ever traveled to. Each of the puppets has a face that looks like it is built in parts. It looks like a piece of it can be removed, almost like masks hiding the same person underneath them. In fact, the only other sound that is different comes from an ancient Asian doll that is a machine found in an “adult toy store” where Michael goes when trying to find a toy store to buy his young son a present. Talk about a disconnect.
Then after a shower, Michael is completely exposed, looking in the mirror, when he studies his face. He almost takes off part of his face to look beneath when… he hears a different voice! Struggling to put clothes on, he rushes out the door and begin knocking on every door trying to find the voice that he heard. Whoever this is, they are different! Then he finds her… Lisa Hesselman (voiced brilliantly by Jennifer Jason Leigh). She is actually here to see Michael. The ironic thing about Michael’s career is that he is a motivational speaker about creating Human Relations in Business, considering he has few emotions left. Lisa has traveled here with her friend to hear his speech.
The entire movie takes place over the course of about one 24-hour period. Michael, so desperate to hear someone else and find a connection that separates himself from everyone else, puts all of his attention and dreams into Lisa. She is an anomaly in his life. He eventually calls her Anomalisa.
One of the great authors of all time, James Joyce often writes about isolation and depression, yet, there is often a moment of profound epiphany in his works for his characters, which causes them to understand and deal with their isolation and depression differently. There is a section of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, where the main character, Stephen Daedalus, sees a woman standing in the river and is forever changed. In his epiphany, he realizes the importance of transformation and beauty. It will forever change his life.
Charlie Kaufman also often writes about characters who are isolated and alone and who also have epiphanies; however, too often in Charlie’s works… these supposedly life changing epiphanies are forgotten shortly after they happen. Whether it is Jim Carey’s character in Eternal Sunshine or John Cusack’s character in Being John Malkovich, the profound realizations they have are fleeting and the troubles of life return. That has never been truer than this film. Michael finally finds what he wants… only it doesn’t offer him what he believes it will. He is the problem… and that is something that he can never accept.
So why is this film on a best animated list? Because, I don’t think this movie could have been done with the same effect any other way. The puppets provide the sterility needed to a world with only one voice. Doing this with either life action, traditional animation, or CGI would fail to capture what Charlie has done here. It is certainly, whether you enjoy the movie or not, a dramatic statement about the problems of loneliness in our modern life… and an incredible use of stop motion.
