Pinocchio (2022)

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)

Directed by: Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson

Won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film.

Streaming on Netflix.

It's a stop-motion, animated film. This film has a fairy-tale-like narrative and storytelling. Fairy tale narratives being larger than life and epic and telling such a story through stop-motion animation - with inanimate objects - brings a beautiful sense of smallness and intimacy to the storytelling. The film opens with a terrific prologue - where a father loses his son in the war - the style of the prologue seems to be influenced by the opening of Pixar's Up. After the father loses the son, he gets depressed and he does countless prayers and keeps wishing his son comes back. Now, this is a point where we as the audience are rooting so badly for the father that we are ready to see even magic help this man. I'd call this point - a fantastical low point - which would lead us to hope even magic help the characters. I believe that this fantastical low point is the key to any good fantasy film. In Harry Potter - Harry's uncle not treating Harry well and burning all of Harry's letters is that fantastical low point. In Eega - Nani being unfairly killed for no mistake of his is that fantastical low point. Now, I was super excited after this fantastical low point - I was hoping that the son would be reincarnated into the puppet he makes. Although the film takes a slightly different turn. 

The film beautifully explores so many intense themes - it explores grief and the processing of it. Pinocchio symbolizes another child one has after losing one, a spouse from a remarriage and the film explores how tough it is for someone to not keep looking for the lost loved ones in the new person that has come into their life. And it is too harsh on the new person - in this case, a kid. The film talks about acceptance and getting past the expectations parents have on their kids. Though the film talks about all these in moments, a few things didn't work for me. One was how there is reincarnation possible for Pinocchio in the film - it just takes away the promised intensity of the stakes. Also, it caters to the tropes of an animated film to an extent - the physical comedy and chaos - some of it which I enjoyed. Overall, I really enjoyed seeing the film for how intimate and epic it was at the same time.

Bombay Rose Analysis

Bombay Rose (2019)

Written, Edited, Designed and Directed by: Gitanjali Rao
Premiered at Venice & screened at TIFF 2019. 

The first aspect we look at animated films is the visuals, but this film made the experience immersive for me because of the excellent sound design. It turns out that the sound design is by Manoj M. Goswami (whose credits include Baahubali 1 & 2). The sounds of the crowd, her payal as she walks, the sounds of traffic/auto horns, cycle bells - all of this together adds in establishing the setting, the city in a better way. The usage of music was also adding to the tone of the film, and her character - it has a sense of romantic nostalgia to it. Whenever I watch an animated/stop motion film - my first question is, what would I miss in the film if this were to be a live-action film? Because then we know that the choice of the form had some purpose. This film first had a lot of innocence to the vibe of the film, which they achieved with the kind of imagery that is used. Also, the transitions from the reality to her dreams, where her costume changes seamlessly - all such sequences had to be done with either match cuts or jump cuts or very elaborate VFX.

An interesting learning I had from a friend is that they use different frame rates for different subjects in the same frame to convey something. It could apparently be used to show a character being internally conflicted and not being with a clear sense of identity. Small observations, minute moments feel so beautiful in animated films - for example, when Tara gets slapped by Kamala - the young boy's eyelids move from him looking away to this side - without turning his head because he doesn't want to further create problems. Just the eyelids move, and it's such a beautiful moment. Also, I've learnt that the set designs are so elaborate in detail that people can recognize locations like bars, and roads in Bombay from just watching the film. It's such a bittersweet film - I personally don't like too sweet and chocolate stuff - there has to be some pain in even feel good films. The film left me with mixed feelings, emotions, and strong images.

I Lost My Body Analysis

I Lost My Body (2019)

Directed by: Jeremy Clapin

Premiered at Cannes Film Festival 2019

Nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars.

It's the story of a severed hand which escapes from a laboratory and is trying to go back to it's body, reminiscing it's life when it was with the young man it was attached to. This hand goes through different hurdles in Paris, and this film present Paris from a bleak perspective and I haven't seen much of Paris in this tone. All we've seen is the glamour and the romance, whether it's Ratatouille, Midnight in Paris, etc. There's an inherent intimacy in the storytelling, especially the scene where Naoufel meets Gabrielle for the first time. The intercutting of the hand's story and the coming-of-age story of Naoufel was interesting, especially in the scene where the hand is cut.

This film certainly has a lot of depth, on the physical level it has a fun, and a visual conflict which probably a live action film can't pull off - a hand trying to get back to it's body. A conflict like this need not be and probably can't be explained anyway but visually. On an internal level, it's Naoufel's coming-of-age story, this comes through both - the writing and through the visuals. On a philosophal level it talks about complex themes like fate, destiny, free will vs determinism; which mostly comes through the writing. In the scenes of conversation, there's not much happening visually - they're shown from behind and the frame and even the subjects are almost static. I think having a lot of motion, just for the sake of it in these kind of intimate conversations, takes us away from the mood of the scene - just like the 20-min brilliant episode in Anomalisa. 

I'm still getting used to this form, I definitely had really good experiences watching Pixar films, Anomalisa, Mary and Max, Spirited Away and I think channeling creativity with the lack of limitations is the challenge in making animated films.