It has been several days since I finished reading "Coco", and I am still excited when writing this article.
Before watching the movie, I hardly left any impression of it. Through only a few short reports and a trailer, I knew that it was Pixar’s work and related to Mexico’s Day of the Dead, but the trailer did not see any bright spots. Coupled with Pixar's unstable performance in recent years, I have an indifferent attitude towards it. However, after the end of the credits, I was unable to get up for a long time due to the huge surprise and emotion.
This is definitely the best animation for next year’s Oscars. If the flower goes to another place, I will eat a pound of Mexican chicken rolls live.
In a series of Pixar's works, the appearance of "Dream Quest" is very simple. It does not have the cute characters of "Finding Nemo" and "Wall·E", does not have the original themes and childhood feelings of the "Toy Story" series, and even its creativity is not as good as "Monsters Company" and "Team of Minds". Of course, Pixar's ability to shape another world is still outstanding, but this time in the City of the Undead, at first glance, it will not give people too much amazing feeling.
On the contrary, the film makes extensive use of Mexican culture that people, especially Chinese, don’t know much about as a background. From the Mexican paper-cutting at the beginning, to the various traditional foods that appear in the film, to the customs of the Day of the Dead, key props such as marigolds, and the beasts, most people don't know the meaning. Moreover, there are a large number of skeleton characters in the film, even if they have been extremely cartoonized, they may not make children like them, and they may be scared to cry. And that ugly and dirty Mexican hairless dog can't be a cute seller at all. With regard to the use of these materials, Pixar is no longer so "approachable" this time.
On the one hand, this may make the visual and entertaining audience ignore the film for reasons of insensitivity to Mexico and the style of painting. On the other hand, it does reflect the strong grafting capabilities of the entire Hollywood animation industry. From "Kung Fu Panda" to "Rio Adventure" to "Brave Legend", we have seen Chinese martial arts, Latin American style and the seamless integration of Scottish culture and Hollywood aesthetic system. The most famous Disney/Pixar is naturally a leader.
Perhaps it can be seen from the translation of the name that the core theme of "Dream of Dreams" is closer to "Flying House". There is also the shadow of "Superman Family" in the rendering of emotions. This is a tear-jerking work that describes death, memory, parting and reconciliation, inspired by the pursuit of dreams. This is also a very Hollywood-style, but not so conservative and moving story.
The "alternative" subject matter casts a vague and mysterious color on the film, peeling off the shell, but can appreciate the touching energy contained in it. It is also sensational but not abusive, and its tear-gas index surpasses the famous montage of "Flying House".
In short, this unpleasant movie, through an unusually solid story and characterization, gathers bit by bit into a vast ocean, and then drops a depth bomb in it to detonate your tear ducts.
The technical aspect of the film, like other Pixar works, is at the top level in the industry. Whether it is art design or CG production, it is impeccable. I was deeply impressed during the movie watching. One was the realistic branches and leaves, as well as the wrinkles and fluttering of the cloth of the clothes, and the other was the character mentioned in the title, that is, the hair and wrinkles on the protagonist’s grandma Coco. . This old lady, who was sitting in a wheelchair throughout the whole process, did not say a few lines, but occupies an important position in the film, should be the most elaborate role of the production team.
In addition, the "Dream Quest" packaged with music naturally involves many plots of playing the guitar. As a guitar enthusiast, I subconsciously pay attention to whether the fingering changes in the animation are reasonable. Satisfactorily, the film is not lazy in this regard. The passage of the little boy MiG secretly playing the piano in the attic, the rhythm of plucking the strings and the change of fingering are all perfectly integrated with the sound of the piano, almost the same as a real person playing. The soundtrack and performance of several flamenco guitars in the film are also very pleasing to the eye.
The reality of these details narrows the distance between the virtual character and the audience and enriches the credibility of the fictional story. It can be seen that all the efforts made by the film serve the ultimate tension and sensationalism.
Compared with Pixar's works with family themes such as "Brain Agents" and "The Superman Family", this time "Dream Quest" appears to be more adult. Not only is it abandoning the lovely style of the past, but the narrative style has also converged a lot, and it will not wrap too many wild things. Although the young boy MiG traveled to the world of the undead, it is still the background of a typical fantasy story; although the film renders the city of the undead very cartoon, it is also interesting enough. But this time, the scene of the underworld must be fundamentally undesirable, even terrifying. In the film, we can also see that there are still poverty and hunger in the Yin Cao Jifu, as well as the so-called "ultimate death". As a cartoon, "Dream Travels" rarely expresses and discusses death.
The atmosphere of the place where the story takes place also makes the film shrouded in a sentiment that is ubiquitous and difficult to detect. This kind of faint sentimental affects the characters in the film all the time, and it also affects the audience in a subtle way.
The first concentrated manifestation was the passage in which Hector explained the "ultimate death" to MiG. This can even be called a revelatory scene. Just a few lines brought out the endless fetters between life and death. The feeling of parting and remembrance is thought-provoking. But the film is based on Hollywood's tonality, and quickly turns the audience's attention back to the protagonist's tense adventure, cutting off the lyrical aftertaste.
The film's discussion of death is mainly based on the inseparable bond between the living and the dead. Since the story itself took place on the night of the Day of the Dead, the living greeted the dead in a cheerful way, and mourning became part of the carnival. Therefore, the tone of the film is not so dark and negative, but it has sadness and nostalgia that are inseparable from death. Under the neutralization of the two temperaments, "Dream Travels" should be the one with the least laughs in Pixar's works, but it is also bright and light. The highlight of the film has returned to the qualities that a good movie should have, that is, a group of flesh and blood characters, a convincing story of twists and turns, and the strong emotions that erupt in it.
At the beginning of the film, the family history of the protagonist is described to the audience in the form of paper-cutting. Here, we saw a parting and the self-improvement and resilience of single mothers. The film first uses this predicament to question the audience: In order to dream, should one abandon family members? This proposition will run through the entire film, and finally the answer will be given through the reconciliation of the people. The narrative form of paper-cutting is also relatively new, allowing the audience to quickly integrate into the story.
In the first half of the story, we are all concerned about whether MiG can realize the music dream. We hope that he can pick up the guitar to participate in the square competition, and we even support him to leave this authoritarian family. Through the presentation of various details of life, the audience will unsurprisingly empathize with MiG. And this is exactly the trap of the main creation. In the turbulent story in the second half of the film, we, like MiG, have an epiphany about what is really important in life. We found that, except for the real villain, no one did anything to miss from beginning to end. All contradictions and conflicts were due to the unforgettable feelings with the family. At this moment, the arc of the characters is fully displayed and the emotions are fully expressed, so the audience will be easily moved, and tears will involuntarily come out.
Another exquisiteness of the film’s drama is reflected in the use of Marigold and Hector’s photos to connect the entire ups and downs of the adventure, and let these two props fail at their respective key moments to create a tense atmosphere. Speed up the narrative rhythm and make the story produce several climaxes, large or small. Marigolds and photos maintain the fate of MiG and Hector respectively. This time the story takes place on the night of the Day of the Dead, so the plot advances quite fiercely and smoothly. In fact, these are all Pixar's usual play methods, but this time they are more familiar and more complicated, so that the overall viewing of the film is guaranteed.
It seems that I have not seen such a narrative logic in a cartoon for a long time, with almost no omissions, and such a rich and full emotional script. The clear story line and reasonable character motivation make every choice of the character full of credibility. And the result of the choice step by step pushed the story to a larger and more complex situation, and finally reached a climax.
In the second half of the plot, there is an unexpected and logical turn. This turning point is probably a rare stroke in genre movies. The baggage is set very delicately, it is not blunt to shake it out, and it can also evoke the audience’s memory of the previous hints and foreshadowing in time, and there is no use of flashback to reproduce the pavement and slow down the rhythm (the explanation paragraph after the transition requires a necessary flashback. ). In addition, the turning point in the plot directly brought the "highlight moment" of the whole story, and successfully continued this light to the end.
When I think about it, in fact, the theme of the whole story also has an inherent turning point. That is, from realizing personal value, to correcting the trajectory of fate, and then to a deep understanding of family affection. The core of the film is extremely sad, which is reflected in the history of the MiG family and also in Hector's life experience. The tortuous adventure depicted in the story has allowed the character to change his attitude towards his family, embrace family affection again, and make MiG grow in self-questioning and reflection.
I don't think it can be overstated for such a solid script. It once again proved that Pixar has top narrative ability, enough to control such an excellent story. In fact, the various routines of this film are not surprising to us in other commercial films, but Pixar has the patience to make it glow with exciting brilliance and burst out with direct inner power.
In my opinion, "Dream Travels" is definitely an Oscar-level animation. It has a quality that is difficult to obsolete and is worthy of the audience's long aftertaste. It also tells us again that death is not a permanent farewell, but forgetting. If people can appreciate such a shining story, I would like to continue to see the output of these somewhat "cliche" universal values.
However, in view of the fact that Pixar’s animations have always been in proportion to the domestic box office and word-of-mouth (a total of 11 were introduced into the country in 20 years, only contributing 140 million US dollars in cumulative box office. It accounts for 1.3% of Pixar’s global total box office of 10.7 billion US dollars), plus this Due to the natural limitations in the choice of sub-themes, I dare not expect too much from its market performance. However, selfishness still hopes that it can become a phenomenal work like "Crazy Animal City", because MiG's adventure in the underworld can touch the softest place in people's hearts.
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