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CANNES, France — "
This guiding philosophy, recalled yesterday by Pixar chief John Lasseter, is very much in evidence in Up, the Disney-Pixar 3-D animation that bowed to thunderous applause at the opening of the Cannes Film Festival.
It's one of the most emotional movies Pixar has ever made, built around a romantic and quixotic South American adventure by a grumpy septuagenarian to fulfill a "cross my heart" promise made to his late wife.
This 10th Pixar feature, directed by Monsters, Inc. helmer Pete Docter (with co-direction and co-writing by Bob Peterson) upholds the upstart 'toon factory's stellar reputation for quality moviemaking. The questing codger is Carl Fredericksen (voiced by Ed Asner), a 78-year-old balloon salesman with a head like a lantern but an attitude like a spent match. He's marking time towards oblivion, having recently lost Ellie, his wife of many decades and love of his life.
A heart-rending prologue establishes their bond, from adventure-loving kids to childless-but-contented seniors, and the promise they make to each other to go on safari to mysterious Paradise Falls in the jungle of South America.
As kids, Carl and Ellie were fascinated by news reports of an explorer named Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), who vanished after his claims of discovering a rare breed of giant bird were contested by skeptical scientists.
The story swiftly and cleverly unfolds, with a nod to The Wizard of Oz: faced with impending eviction from his home and exile to a seniors' residence, Carl fights back by strapping thousands of helium balloons to his house. They lift him out of trouble and towards the South American sojourn he'd always intended to take.
"Adventure is out there!" goes the trekker's mantra. It also applies to beefy 8-year-old stowaway Russell (Jordan Nagai), an apparently parentless do-gooder who has been trying to assist Carl in order to earn what he needs to get his senior Wilderness Explorer badge. Up, opening May 29 in theatres worldwide, is a story of human bonds remembered and new ones forged, and never for one moment does it seems insincere or contrived – even when a rainbow-coloured avian freak resembling a toucan version of Sesame Street's Big Bird shows up and is promptly named "Kevin" by Russell.
Up was well received by international critics at yesterday's morning screening and later by cinema glitterati at the official world premiere in the Palais des Festivals.
It had the prestige of being not only the first animated film to open Cannes, but also the first 3-D one to do so.
It's all about the story for Pixar films, Lasseter said at a news conference following the morning screening, and the company thinks nothing of rewriting a scene 30 or 40 times to get it right.
Lasseter is excited about the potential of digital 3-D, which is still in the selling stage, and he's confident that wowing Cannes with Up is a step in the right direction. Yet he's still a big fan of old hand-drawn 2-D animation and he sounded almost defensive about it.
"The reality is that people don't want to see bad movies; 2-D animation became the scapegoat for bad storytelling," Lasseter said.
The Pixar dudes are nerdishly intent on getting the fine details correct. They even went so far as to calculate how many balloons it would actually take to lift a house skywards. Their answer? It would take 26.5 million helium balloons, just in case you're planning a trip to South America from the comfort of your own living room.
JUDGES WITH HEART: Opening day of Cannes traditionally includes remarks from the nine-member jury who are selected to view 20 competition films and award the Palme d'Or and other prizes.
This year's panel, led by French actor Isabelle Huppert and including U.S. director James Gray and actor Robin Wright Penn (there are no Canucks this year), seems more comprised of politicians than film adjudicators. "The world `judge' to me is so negative," said Wright Penn, the estranged wife of actor Sean Penn, last year's jury president.
How, then, is she planning to decide which films get awards?
"The beauty of it is to share what our heart is feeling."
Jury president Huppert, a two-time winner for Best Actress at Cannes, said she won't push people to make tough decisions. "I don't think we are here to judge. We are here to love film," she said.
Was the assignment properly explained to them?
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