Top Ten Animated Films with Guest Writer Tucker Meijer: #5 Critics' Take
Here are Tucker’s take on my choice for our 5th best film, Spirited Away, and my take on his choice, Toy Story 3. Below are our original posts.
Tucker’s Take on Jeremy’s #5: Spirited Away
I love the words from Miyazaki that Jeremy uses to begin his review: “Most animation seeks to animate the clap. I seek to animate the silence between the clap.” I love it for a lot of reasons, but after reading it, I got to thinking about these moments of silence in Miyazaki’s films and in the other animated films that I’ve written about in this series.
As Jeremy notes, silence – those spaces in between the clap – are integral to creating the feeling of realness and authenticity in fictional films. I’ve learned that these silences can’t be overlooked; without them, a movie can feel rushed. These pauses slow down the pace and the best filmmakers know how to wield them effectively.
One movie that works in these spaces masterfully is Debra Granick’s Leave No Trace. This isn’t an animated movie, but I bring it up here to demonstrate the importance of the quieter moments. The film is about a father / daughter duo who live a nomadic lifestyle in forested parks across the Pacific Northwest. The father, Will, suffers from PTSD and his daughter, Tom, struggles with their lifestyle. Near the end of the film, Tom and Will find themselves in a community deep in the woods, no longer isolated.
There’s one sequence where Tom and Will are sitting outside the trailer where they’re living. They’re eating oranges and are trying to get the peels off in one try. Will gets close but the peel breaks and he laughs. Tom manages to do it and hold the long, unbroken peel up for Will to see. She tells him it looks like a seahorse and he smiles. There is a beat and then the sequence ends.
Narratively, this sequence doesn’t add anything to the movie. It doesn’t push the story forward in any way. But it solidifies Tom and Will as real people. The film’s emotional climax (which occurs not too long after the sequence I’ve just described) hits so much harder because of the way Granick employs these moments of authenticity throughout the movie.
The orange peel scene in Leave No Trace and the train scene in Spirited Away are not as different as one thinks. In both of them, Miyazaki and Granick artfully deploy silence, a pause, the space between a clap, to great effect. Because of these moments, each film is made even better.
Jeremy’s Take on Tucker’s #5: Toy Story 3
Pixar films have a history of creating emotional climaxes that work despite the audience knowing what is about to happen. It is an incredible feat. Most of the time, when a film foreshadows its ending, and therefore the attentive audience member knows what is going to happen, some of the magic is lost. Knowing that Remy would end up impressing Anton Ego in Ratatouille was a forgone conclusion, yet, when Anton flashes back to his childhood, we are moved with him.
Toy Story 3 is one of the few Pixar movies where I didn’t know how it was going to end. Tucker talks about that endearing and tearful moment, when the toys that we have come to love, begin to slide down towards a garbage incinerator and they all grab hands. Pixar at that moment had me in the palm of their hands. I remember thinking to myself, wow… Pixar is actually going to do it. These beloved characters are meeting their end. They are about to ruin the childhood of millions of children. The fact that I believed it could have ended that way is a testament to Pixar’s storytelling ability. How they survive is also a testament to it as it was indeed set up when they arrive at the garbage dump and the little green aliens from Pizza Planet run off.
I agree with Tucker that this is the perfect coda for the Toy Story series. It culminates each of the important relationships and ends in Andy playing with his toys one more time with Bonnie, a young girl, who he is giving his toys to before he leaves for college. Even though Toy Story 4 is a very good movie in its own right, I do not think it culminates the series as well as Toy Story 3.
Of all the moments in the film that continue to make me laugh, smile, and chuckle at Pixar’s great use of pushing against stereotypes in stories is the scenes with Ken and Barbie. Barbie, I assumed, would not be an intelligent character, but her ingenuity really saves the toys. The surprise involving Ken are hysterical. When you add Spanish-language Buzz Lightyear to the mix, it is amazing.
While Tucker brings up Oscar nominations for the only three animated films (Beauty and the Beast, Up, and Toy Story 3), I agree it is quite an achievement even though the Oscar nominations are not a great judge of quality. In fact, I am going to give a hot take. I think Toy Story 2 is the best film in the series.
Toy Story 2 is one of those rare sequels that successfully reminds us of what we love about the original, and yet, is its own film. Other sequels like that include Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Spider-man 2, The Godfather: Part II, and even Lord of the Rings: Two Towers. Toy Story 2 begins with perhaps my favorite sequence in the series when an action scene involving the villainous Mr. Potato-Head leads to a chance for Woody to save the day. In this scene, it seems like it is in another world where these random characters are inhabiting the same universe. It pulls out to reveal that it is indeed Andy’s imagination. I too would take toys from various series and create my own storyline and world bringing them together.
Toy Story I think is at its best when it plays with the notion of the importance of toys to children. Woody’s existential crisis in the first film is because he is being replaced by the newer cooler toy, Buzz Lightyear. But his real crisis comes when he meets that other toys from his series. There have long been two types of toy collectors. Those who collect toys to play with them and those who collect them to make money, keep them in the box. I really appreciate how Toy Story 2 takes those toy collectors to task for not embracing the purpose of a toy, which is to be played with and enjoyed, not kept in a box. The best song in the Toy Story series is undoubtedly Annie’s when she reminisces about her previous owner who grew out of playing with her. That is redone in Toy Story 3 with Lotso, but not nearly as well in my mind.
All the Toy Story movies have great narrative invention, and while Toy Story 3 is a great movie, I would take the narrative and thematic cohesiveness of Toy Story 2 any day.
Tucker’s #5: Toy Story 3
Yes, my undying loyalty for Pixar movies continues with TS3, the best one in the franchise.
It’s no secret that trilogies are tough to pull off; the Hollywood trilogy track record isn’t particularly glowing. People waited for Toy Story 3 with a guarded excitement, knowing that it was a follow up to a pretty good second movie. When TS3 hit theaters, the reviews were glowing and the movie ended up scoring a nomination for Best Picture at the Oscars (some movie trivia: Toy Story 3 is the third animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture after Beauty and the Beast and Up).
All of this hype is for good reason. Toy Story 3 felt like the perfect ending to the stories of the toys that audiences fell in love with (until, of course, Toy Story 4). Andy is heading to college and the toys find themselves in Sunnyside Daycare. At the daycare, they meet a host of new toys, with Lots-O-Huggin Bear at the center of it all. Their new home seems great – the toys are finally being played with, there are lots of other toys to interact with. But there are some tensions beneath the sunny veneer of their new home. Woody still has a lot of love for Andy and can’t seem to shake the feeling that he shouldn’t be at the daycare. This is a conflict that runs parallel to the plight of the toys who are confronted by the villainous Lotso.
Although Toy Story 3 is part of a franchise with beloved characters who are back and better than ever, the host of new characters that are introduced bring just as much energy and joy into the film. In franchises, there is often a problem with the balance of bringing in new characters that feel whole and complete alongside the other characters that we’ve come to know and love. Toy Story 3 navigates this perfectly; the new characters are just as loveable and just as complete as the old and you root for them in the same way.
Toy Story 3 also hits emotional highs and lows throughout and really packs a punch. There is a scene near the end of the movie that is infused with so much emotion and feels so raw. The toys are in landfill after escaping from Sunnyside. The toys are swept onto a conveyer belt that leads to the incinerator. They try to scramble over the trash but they can’t – the trash is too bulky and they can’t escape. They sit back and watch as they get nearer and nearer to the fire that seems like it will soon consume them. They reach out and clasp hands; all of the main characters are linked as one, just waiting for death.
They escape (because of course! This is Pixar) but the moment where all of the toys are resigned to their fate is an image that sticks with me long after watching the movie. It is this moment and the film’s closing scene that hit me the hardest. Andy ends up giving the toys to Bonnie and he tells her about each one with such love. It’s a moment of learning to let go and finding comfort in endings and new beginnings. This theme isn’t particularly unique, but it’s done so well that it really doesn’t matter.
Toy Story 3 is the perfect encapsulation of the Toy Story franchise; it has the humor and the heart that makes the series so fantastic and it’s all done the best in this movie.
Jeremy’s #5: Spirited Away
Hayao Miyazaki was once asked to explain how his animation differs from contemporary American animation. He thought about it for a moment before suddenly clapping three times. “Most animation seeks to animate the clap. I seek to animate the silence between the clap.”
There have been numerous names given to those silences between claps; some call them pillow time, moments of sacred silence, breaths of life. Whatever they are called, Miyazaki’s explanation of what sets his work apart is truly ingenious. His films are often completely fantastical, and yet, feel real, not because of the large plot pieces or even the characters he creates, but because of the quiet moments, the pauses, the silence, the moments of breath in his films that breathe life into them.
Take one such moment in his masterpiece, Spirited Away. Sen (aka Chihrio) has found her courage when her friend Haku is injured and she must journey to Yubaba’s sister to find out how to help him. On her journey, she waits at a train station in the middle of nowhere. When it arrives she boards the train and off it goes. In almost any other movie, there would be a scene on the train with a new character to further the plot. Instead, she just sits. There is no conflict. We watch as the train slowly makes its way through waterways stretching into the distance. When she arrives at her destination, a lamp comes hoping towards her. It bows and she returns the bow. It then hops off, hoping she will follow. She does. When they arrive at a small cottage, the lamp jumps up and hangs itself on the archway. The lamp is completely superfluous to the story. There was no need for it, and yet, the same love, care, and attention to detail that made such great characters as Haku are given to even the lamp in this scene.
Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro may be the most quintessential Miyazaki stories. His style on display represents his stylistic best in these two movies. While my heart tells me that I love My Neighbor Totoro more than Spirited Away because of nostalgia, my brain tells me Spirited Away is perhaps the greatest use of animation in terms of creating a world so outside our experience. My Neighbor Totoro has moments of that magical whimsy like when the younger sister first follows the small Totoro into the woods and finds the giant Totoro sleeping. Almost every moment is like that in Spirited Away.
I will admit that I don’t know enough about Japanese mythology to know how much Miyazaki is borrowing or adapting myths. That being said, there are obvious cultural connections. Most Asian cultures share a belief of spirits being present. Superstitions connecting the character language to meaning abound. The sound of the character that represents fish (yu) is the same sound as the character that represents fortune; hence on New Years you must eat a whole fish to receive whole fortune in the new year. These old customs permeate Miyazaki’s imagination, and yet, it feels and seems as if his imagination is solely his own. Think of him as the Lewis Carrol of our time, creating a fantasy completely unique to himself, not connected to what has come before. That newness creates a sense of wonder and awe found in every frame in the film. Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro operate less on the fundamental principle of story-telling (conflict) and instead operate on discovery. Even when scenes lack conflict, we are engaged as an audience, because we and the main character are always discovering something new.
Chihiro’s journey into this wonder and discovery begins as fear. As her and her parents are moving, traveling in a car to their new home, they drive through a forest where she sees an ancient stone marker. They then come upon an unexpected wall with a gateway. Her parents, wanting to explore, do not listen to her as they cross the threshold. On the other side, they find a town that is empty. Yet, smells of great food seem to be coming from the stalls. Her parents sit down and begin to eat. Eating the spirit food morphs them into pigs and Chihiro runs in fear as the sun sets, but she is unable to escape. She has now entered the spirit realm. Haku, a young boy, who tries to protect her, tells her that she must secure a job with the witch, Yubaba, in order to stop from fading away. Chihiro sets off and eventually succeeded in securing a job, paying with her name. She is given a new one, Sen. After this moment, Sen moves towards being amazed at what she sees rather than frightened.
Her amazement leads her to make a wonderful array of friends: from the odd No Face who at first seems to be devouring everyone and yet is kind by her because of her kindness to him, to the multi-armed Kamaji, even by the end, Yubaba, the witch, wants her to succeed in remembering her name and freeing herself and her parents.
I know of no other story-tellers who can craft a story not relying on conflict. Chihiro’s journey is ultimately a spiritual one, driven by a sense of wonder and discovery, not only at the amazing things around her, but also herself. One discovery is that Yubaba is not evil. In fact, she is not a villain. She is a stressed owner of a famous bathhouse for spirits. Miyazaki does not allow villains into his films. He doesn’t believe that people are generally bad. In each of his movies, watch how the “villain” is eventually portrayed as a real person, not as someone seeking to do evil things. In almost any American movie (Harry Potter is the exception of course [yes, I realize it’s British, but work with me here), a witch is a negative concept. Yubaba is not a witch in the sense that she uses her magic in evil ways, but instead uses it to support her overworked and tired self who must continue to make this bath house successful.
Miyazaki has a gift of imagination that is not bound by normal understandings of culture and influence. He is an original and that is a true rarity. Spirited Away exemplifies this imagination and, therefore, has a place on any top ten animated film lists. No wonder both Tucker and I have selected the film as one of the best ever made.
