Films of 2007: Portraits of Young Artists
I had been hoping I would at last be able to compile a “Top Ten” Movie list this year. Now we’re at the very end of the year, and I’ve realized that, because of all my work on the book and the documentary, I have barely even seen ten movies all year. Not much of a basis for comparison. Not that I haven’t made an effort to see more - I tried twice to see Juno at the theater in Union Square, but it was sold out both times, no doubt a result of the great word of mouth that film has been receiving.
What I can do in my next few posts is give a roundup of what I’ve seen and talk about some favorite films of the year. Today I want to compare the very best film I saw all year, but one which is very unlikely to get a Best picture nod come Oscar time, with what many people believe is one of the front runners for Best Picture consideration. You might be surprised at which comes out on top.
One is Antonement, a high-toned epic love story, set in England and France against the backdrop of the 1930’s and World War II. This is the type of film that usually gets the Academy salivating. It’s also a type of film I normally love, an intelligent period piece. This one also happens to be about another subject close to my heart - the artist and the artist’s path. Specifically, it’s about the power of art to harm or heal. The other film is actually about more or less the same subject: an animated family film called Ratatouille about an aspiring chef who happens to be a rat. Ratatouille seems to have a lock on Best Animated Film — I can’t imagine anything else winning — but is unlikely to get a Best Picture nod, which is almost always reserved for more high-toned material. But which film more successfully delivers its message about art?
The first hour of Atonement is terrific: fast-paced, an intriguing plot and a multitude of characters interacting. On her wealthy family’s English estate, a precious, 13-year-old budding writer, Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), has just finished her first play and is desperately trying to get her visiting cousins to act in it. Frustrated in that attempt, she is gradually drawn into the unfolding drama of love between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley), and Robbie (James McAvoy), their young gardener. Misunderstanding her scene she sees by a fountain and another seen through a library door that should have been closed, Briony puts these and many other things together erroneously, and the result is a story she concocts that she may or may not actually believe herself, a story that unjustly sends Robbie to prison.
After this first exciting climax, the story falls apart dramatically, especially because there is very little to the rest of the story. It’s an extended denouement detailing the consequences of that first act drama. Almost five years later, we slog for a long time through Robbie’s wartime experiences in France (the military enabled him to get out of prison), intercut with a brief re-connection between him and Cecilia, and the now grown Briony’s efforts to pursue the artistic path as a means to atone for what she did. But the atonement aspect, which should hold the story together, isn’t very convincingly developed, in spite of a very good performance by Romola Garai as the older Briony, who takes over from the sensational Ronan. We don’t learn much about Briony’s ideas about art, how they develop and change from when she is 13, or exactly how she hopes to use them to atone. Even how she feels about art as something that is part of her soul is largely absent. The last act delivers a startling reversal, as the elderly Briony finishes her last book, but it’s not one that gives much of an answer to the questions about art raised in the film. We’re led to believe — and this is all I can say without giving too much away — that a false happy ending is somehow better than a genuine tragedy.
I’m not going to say that the ending of the Ian McEwan novel this is based on, which I haven’t read, is this trivial; many people who have read it insist that the development of the artistic theme, particularly in the ending, is much stronger in the book. Because of the tricky plot structure, among other things, it seems as though the book’s meaning is ultimately unfilmable. When the shallow meaning that results is combined with the heavy dose of pretentiousness, at least in the telling of the later part, the film is ultimately hollow.
The film that truly succeeds in exploring art is Ratatouille, produced by Pixar, which has been responsible in the last few years for one critical and commercial hit after another, including Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. It combines some of the best and most solid storytelling of the year with multi-leveled, subtle and even profound themes wrapped up in its lighthearted humor and breathtaking animation. This is a film that everyone from five to ninety-five can enjoy on some level.
Remy, a young rat living in the French countryside, is also a budding artist with food - his sensitive nose and palate seek out the rarest combinations of flavors. This puts him at odds with his large family who, like all normal rats, eat only to live. They’ll swallow anything, including garbage, that’s not actually poison. Remy knows that he is somehow set apart and is often impatient with his family. The film’s most poignant moments involve him trying to explain to his brother Emile just what he sees and feels and tastes when he comes across a new combination of spices or herbs. Emile doesn’t see it at all, and Remy is frustrated; and yet he doesn’t fully appreciate his brother’s loyalty to him.
Catastrophe intervenes and Remy is separated from his family, ending up in Paris, and of all places, Gusteau’s restaurant, made famous by its owner, Remy’s idol, the late chef Aguste Gusteau. Now it’s under the control of Skinner, a pint-sized tyrant who has taken over Gusteau’s empire and wants to devote it to fast food. Remy, communing with Gusteau’s ghost, at first expresses alarm when he sees Linguini, the lowliest member of the restaurant staff, whose job is to mop the floors, trying to “fix” some soup on the stove after he has accidentally spilled a good part of it, with disastrous results. Gusteau comments that even Linguini is a member of the staff. Remy knows that Gusteau’s motto is “anyone can cook,” but he can’t help muttering, “that doesn’t mean that anyone should!”
After Remy himself has “fixed” the soup, it becomes a hit, and Linguini is given credit for it, the two have to collaborate to keep Linguini at his job. Remy now has access to the kitchen, holding onto Linguini’s hair under his hat, and guiding him in his movements as Remy remains the guiding mind, always trying to keep Skinner (and above all the Health Inspector) from finding out there’s a rat in the kitchen. Not only that, Remy and Linguini will soon have to face the formidable restaurant critic, Anton Ego (superbly voiced by Peter O’Toole), who has apparently never met a dish he actually likes. There’s much more to the hilarious plot, but there is even more to the subtle exploration of Remy’s personal and artistic growth.
Remy has started out with a great deal of talent, moderate self-assurance, and a certain scorn for those not as talented as himself. Unlike Briony, he doesn’t actually misuse his talent, but he still lacks a real understanding of the nature of his medium, food, the needs of his “audience,” or of the artist’s true goals. He eventually learns a great deal about his gift, about collaboration, and about family. The scenes in which director/writer Brad Bird and co-writer Jan Pinkava show this are marvels of narrative skill, in which themes are seldom directly pointed out but illustrated in action.
When Remy first teams up with Linguini, the two have to learn to be patient in communicating, because Remy can’t speak human language and has to express his ideas through gestures and eloquent shrugs (when he is speaking with his rat family or to Gusteau, he has the voice of Patton Oswalt). Often their deepest communication takes place through food. On the first morning after Remy spends the night at Linguini’s apartment, he apparently disappears. Linguini is sure his rat has run out on him — until he discovers Remy in the kitchen cooking omelets for the two of them, an act which cements their friendship.
Later, after their first exhausting night of work at the restaurant, Linguini takes his “little chef” outside and offers him dinner — not anything he has cooked himself, fortunately, for he still has absolutely no skills in the kitchen — but some cheese, bread and grapes. Remy gratefully accepts this very simple meal. He is learning to open himself to food as communication, and to the inner meaning of art as something given from love.
This is what I originally wrote, and when I was almost finished and ready to post, I found an article in which Bird has confirmed that this is indeed the movie’s theme: “Cooks are givers, and rats are takers. In the larger world there are people who are givers and people who are takers. Cooking, feeding people, is a giving act. All art at its best is a giving act that continues to give as long as the art is consumed.” (quoted from Time).
The idea of cooking as a collaborative art and the interplay of skills required by a whole team of artists are also given a great deal of play in the story. It’s amusing to speculate that the story is on one level a kind of allegory for the collaborative work of the creative team in a movie studio like Pixar. The suspicion is strengthened by the presence of an owner and top chef who is all for a bland, mass-produced product rather than true art. The fact that the mass-production kings at Disney studios now own Pixar adds some spice to this speculation.
The story’s themes are further developed in the treatment of the anorexic restaurant critic Anton Ego, whose pride has so warped his taste that he can’t even enjoy food as basic nourishment (His motto is “If I don’t absolutely love it, I don’t swallow!”).
The story’s climax, which takes place on the fateful evening when Anton Ego comes to eat at Gusteau’s, shouldn’t be spoiled for anyone who hasn’t seen it; not merely out of critical consideration, as with Atonement, but because it’s too good to be spoiled. It simultaneously gives us a satisfying resolution to the plot, the greatest development of character, and the culmination of the movie’s themes (it’s amazing how few films can deliver this successfully). It involves Remy moving beyond simple technique and using everything he has learned as an artist in the preparation of one very simple and surprising dish. . .and the healing quality of art is given a richly satisfying demonstration.
Ratatouille has received almost unanimous critical raves. A few critics have even launched comparisons to famous food films like Babette’ s Feast, another of my all-time favorites. Ratatouille lacks the deep religious and spiritual themes of Babette’s Feast, but is an equally valid expression of the theme that true artists give all of themselves to their work. It also dramatically shows how food can heal individuals and bring people together, in a way that Antonement only tries and fails to do.
Because Ratatouille is now on DVD and Atonement is still in theaters, you can make the comparison for yourself. Maybe you’ll agree that Ratatouille deserves that Best Picture nod.
