I made a mistake. I had been feeling really down lately, so I figured a nice, lighthearted comedy from the director of The Triplets of Belleville would really improve my mood. Instead I felt like killing myself.
In a good way, though.
It's not depressing, it's bittersweet. Which means it will make you cry, unless you have no soul. The story follows a struggling magician as he tries to care for a transient girl name of Alice, who believes his acts of illusion to be real magic. He tries to take care of her and does his darnedest to keep the illusion alive because, as much as he occasionally tries to protest, he likes the attention and he needs someone to believe in him. The problem is that it's not real, and her faith in him inevitably has to have its awakening, which the two characters protract as long as humanly possible.
Which is painful. This is a painful movie to watch, and amongst its lighthearted elements, visual humor, and aching loving for everything that it's doing, is a real fear that its conclusion is reality: there is no such thing as magic. This is backed up by newspapers declaring war, bosses pocketing employee's money, and suicidal clowns. You're just not gonna get the "Let's make music with a refrigerator!" feeling you get from Triplets of Belleville. Be forewarned.
Alright, but that aside, everything else in this movie is pitch-perfect what it's supposed to be. Mostly hand-drawn style animation with a few bits of digital help, this movie looks gorgeous, especially in its representation of Scotland (which was spot on in some places, I may add), and whereas initial amounts of dialog concerned me that Chomet was dropping both his and Tati's sublime elegance-in-silence, the actual snippets of recorded dialog are as significant in their individual words as Pokemons' name-repeating stands in for real language. If there's anything hard to do in a movie animated or otherwise, it's laying the full brunt of a character's feelings and actions on their faces, and this movie pulls it off.
The cards are stacked against this movie. Featuring an older style of animation (more skillful than some of the best-done CG animations of today, and I'm nondenominational as regards animation), not a lot of dialog, a sad and sensitive ending, and foreign produced, it's a very good thing that it managed to get a nomination at least to get that crowd interested in it. Keep in mind, people, that this movie came out the same year that Studio Ghibli announced the possibility of a bankruptcy. It's really easy to see where it gets its negativity from, less extra-cinematic craziness of our current world.
--PolarisDiB
In a good way, though.
It's not depressing, it's bittersweet. Which means it will make you cry, unless you have no soul. The story follows a struggling magician as he tries to care for a transient girl name of Alice, who believes his acts of illusion to be real magic. He tries to take care of her and does his darnedest to keep the illusion alive because, as much as he occasionally tries to protest, he likes the attention and he needs someone to believe in him. The problem is that it's not real, and her faith in him inevitably has to have its awakening, which the two characters protract as long as humanly possible.
Which is painful. This is a painful movie to watch, and amongst its lighthearted elements, visual humor, and aching loving for everything that it's doing, is a real fear that its conclusion is reality: there is no such thing as magic. This is backed up by newspapers declaring war, bosses pocketing employee's money, and suicidal clowns. You're just not gonna get the "Let's make music with a refrigerator!" feeling you get from Triplets of Belleville. Be forewarned.
Alright, but that aside, everything else in this movie is pitch-perfect what it's supposed to be. Mostly hand-drawn style animation with a few bits of digital help, this movie looks gorgeous, especially in its representation of Scotland (which was spot on in some places, I may add), and whereas initial amounts of dialog concerned me that Chomet was dropping both his and Tati's sublime elegance-in-silence, the actual snippets of recorded dialog are as significant in their individual words as Pokemons' name-repeating stands in for real language. If there's anything hard to do in a movie animated or otherwise, it's laying the full brunt of a character's feelings and actions on their faces, and this movie pulls it off.
The cards are stacked against this movie. Featuring an older style of animation (more skillful than some of the best-done CG animations of today, and I'm nondenominational as regards animation), not a lot of dialog, a sad and sensitive ending, and foreign produced, it's a very good thing that it managed to get a nomination at least to get that crowd interested in it. Keep in mind, people, that this movie came out the same year that Studio Ghibli announced the possibility of a bankruptcy. It's really easy to see where it gets its negativity from, less extra-cinematic craziness of our current world.
--PolarisDiB