rat in the kitchen
I celebrated the completion of the thrice-damnéd progression coding yesterday by not only tripping, falling and buying some David Bowie, but by finally taking myself off to see Ratatouille. I'd got out of the habit of weekday-morning movies, an error I shall attempt to rectify: seeing a film with three and a half other people in the movie theatre (one small child, well-behaved) is bloody near ideal, as far as I'm concerned. Having an inner Scrooge, and all...
Ratatouille is an interesting film. It's written and directed by Brad Bird, who did Incredibles, which I have grown to like over time in my usual wayward fashion, and the film certainly represents his characteristic purveyance of a far more adult take than is the norm in animated storytelling. But it's a strange choice of movie setting and plot in a lot of ways. I honestly don't think the kiddie audience will be able to access a lot of the film, which is firmly situated in the incredibly pressured and snobbish world of French restaurant cuisine; while the main character, the rat Remy, is an endearing and expressive little creature, his desire to be a chef doesn't really speak with any directness to a child's experience. I'm also not sure how far the film's setting will appeal to a mainstream American audience: the French milieu, while slightly caricatured, is quite lushly and approvingly depicted, which is worlds away from the classic Disney tendency to animated othering of exotic cultures.
I suppose what all this seems to be saying is that this film, paradoxically given its success, isn't made for the average audience. The gradual drift of mainstream Western culture away from actual cooking and into prepackaged meals means that a lot of the film's detail will not really resonate with an audience, other than the small fraction of serious foodies. (And it's bloody rude about fast food and convenience food). I, of course, loved it: the kitchen and cooking are depicted the loving detail, and the animation process gives both reality and an idealised gloss to beautiful copper cookware, proper chef's knives, high-quality ingredients, artistic plating and the dexterous speed of a professional cook at work. A lot of attention has been paid to the food in artistic terms, and it's beautiful. It's also authentic; apparently the animated team spent months in various French kitchens, working with professional cooks, and agonising over the precise shade of lettuce and how to depict authentically rotted veggies.
To me, then, the film was worth seeing just for its depiction of cooking. The rest of it - well, shrug. It's a cute story, the classic underdog following his dream in the face of all odds, and has some reasonably standard feel-good elements: peripheral love story, the resolution of a father/son relationship, and a somewhat tongue-in-cheek and agreeably hokey provision of nasty villains, sad and ultimately redeemed villains and evil lawyers. Oh, also lost heirs, deathless car chases (by scooter and rat paws) and a mad old granny with a shotgun. The story was fun and not quite predictable, which I do appreciate in a movie these days, but I found it slightly slow-paced. Ultimately, though, that just gave me more time to perve the kitchen scenery.
It's funny thinking over this in retrospect, because I can't quite work out why I'm not ravingly enthusiastic about the film. I enjoyed it, but not wholly; I loved the cooking bits, and appreciated the animation, but it didn't colonise my imagination in the way I think it really ought to have done. Sad. But see it. It's fun.
Ratatouille is an interesting film. It's written and directed by Brad Bird, who did Incredibles, which I have grown to like over time in my usual wayward fashion, and the film certainly represents his characteristic purveyance of a far more adult take than is the norm in animated storytelling. But it's a strange choice of movie setting and plot in a lot of ways. I honestly don't think the kiddie audience will be able to access a lot of the film, which is firmly situated in the incredibly pressured and snobbish world of French restaurant cuisine; while the main character, the rat Remy, is an endearing and expressive little creature, his desire to be a chef doesn't really speak with any directness to a child's experience. I'm also not sure how far the film's setting will appeal to a mainstream American audience: the French milieu, while slightly caricatured, is quite lushly and approvingly depicted, which is worlds away from the classic Disney tendency to animated othering of exotic cultures.
I suppose what all this seems to be saying is that this film, paradoxically given its success, isn't made for the average audience. The gradual drift of mainstream Western culture away from actual cooking and into prepackaged meals means that a lot of the film's detail will not really resonate with an audience, other than the small fraction of serious foodies. (And it's bloody rude about fast food and convenience food). I, of course, loved it: the kitchen and cooking are depicted the loving detail, and the animation process gives both reality and an idealised gloss to beautiful copper cookware, proper chef's knives, high-quality ingredients, artistic plating and the dexterous speed of a professional cook at work. A lot of attention has been paid to the food in artistic terms, and it's beautiful. It's also authentic; apparently the animated team spent months in various French kitchens, working with professional cooks, and agonising over the precise shade of lettuce and how to depict authentically rotted veggies.
To me, then, the film was worth seeing just for its depiction of cooking. The rest of it - well, shrug. It's a cute story, the classic underdog following his dream in the face of all odds, and has some reasonably standard feel-good elements: peripheral love story, the resolution of a father/son relationship, and a somewhat tongue-in-cheek and agreeably hokey provision of nasty villains, sad and ultimately redeemed villains and evil lawyers. Oh, also lost heirs, deathless car chases (by scooter and rat paws) and a mad old granny with a shotgun. The story was fun and not quite predictable, which I do appreciate in a movie these days, but I found it slightly slow-paced. Ultimately, though, that just gave me more time to perve the kitchen scenery.
It's funny thinking over this in retrospect, because I can't quite work out why I'm not ravingly enthusiastic about the film. I enjoyed it, but not wholly; I loved the cooking bits, and appreciated the animation, but it didn't colonise my imagination in the way I think it really ought to have done. Sad. But see it. It's fun.