Go watch Persepolis NOW.
Can't believe Ratatouille beat it at the Oscars. Where's the comparison, even?
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16 comments:
i have to disagree with you here. in all fairness, i'd say ratatouille's as good as persepolis in terms of content, and much better technically. we tend to denigrate comedies and elevate stories with serious themes, which never made much sense to me. making an entertaining comedy is no joke (so to speak). i think each film has its own particular aesthetic, and within context each is as good as the other.
the tough task in an animated film is in bringing about a certain realism within its own context, where the viewer needs to be made to sympathize with the characters and suspend his disbelief even though everything is obviously drawn. in that sense, making you understand, love and exult with a rat aspiring to be a gourmet chef is i think far harder than getting you to sympathize with the life of a young girl growing up under an oppressive regime. the former is an otherwise ridiculous scenario that would require a kind of genius to pull off effectively, while the latter is something we read about and know about and evokes many existing ideas and memories in us.
i'm not saying persepolis is bad, however. i LOVED it. i'm just saying ratatouille deserved the award anyway.
anyone see Surf's Up, the third nominee?
supposed to be pretty decent, in a Christopher Guest mockumentary mates with Happy Feet sort of way..
then again, i need to get around to seeing Ratatouille first. the shame.
Eye: I just happen to think that Persepolis is an infinitely better, and infinitely more intelligent film than Ratatouille. This has nothing to do with the fact that Ratatouille's a comedy. Other movies of Ratatouille's genre such as Finding Nemo, Ice Age, or Spirited Away, may have given Persepolis some serious competition. I don't think suspension of disbelief is the issue here.
Ratatouille didn't really work for me- not that I disliked it. It was mildly entertaining, albeit formulaic. And the humour too american (I can't tell you how thoroughly sick of americans I am. I think much less of them now than I did before I came here).
Bobo: Haven't seen Surf's Up. Hadn't heard of it even, until I read the list of nominations. I myself only saw Ratatouille about a week ago. It was ok...
strictly from an animator's point of view, ratatouille evidently took far more effort, imagination and skill to execute than persepolis. if we were looking only at how intelligent the story and writing was, persepolis should probably have been nominated in one of the screenplay categories where its competitors would've been more appropriate. but since the competition was in the animation category, i'm afraid there really isn't much comparison between persepolis and ratatouille. ratatouille wins any day.
to pad out my argument a bit further --
frankly, i was blown away when i saw ratatouille. i tend to be apprehensive about watching 3d animation on the large screen, but pretty much everything about ratatouille was spot on. for a family entertainer, you're not expecting more than a mental burger and shake for two hours, but ratatouille was not only entertaining, but rather more nuanced than the average animated film. and it was visually breathtaking, without exaggeration. i've never seen such landscapes and detailing in a 3d animation without the whole thing getting wooden and robotic.
as an artist, i'd pick ratatouille over persepolis. as a writer, it'd prolly be the other way around. but then we ARE talking about a specific category here...
nina -
i heard abt surf's up when it came out, and really wnated to see it mainly because jeff bridge's character was described as the penguin version of the Dude, and i'll follow Zooey D to the ends of the earth (if she consents to relations) :)
eye -
i disagree. without passing judgment on either film. it's for best animated feature film, not best animation. it's not abt the depth of animation, which i think pretty much has Pixar at the cutting-edge.
they introduced the category (though i may be mistaken) after there were calls that the animated films weren't getting any recognition, given that the best picture category was dominated by live action films, the only exception being Beauty and the best. so much like hte docu category, they created the animated film category.
bobo: not so fast, my young friend.
for one thing, comparing the animated feature film category with the documentary category is like making cider with oranges. the only reasonable comparison is between the two feature film categories. further, the criteria for judging an animated feature film, given that such a category HAS been created, will have to differ from those of judging a regular film. hear me out...
so let's start with the basics. how is an animated film different from a live action film? in the latter, everything from the characters to the settings are fabricated pretty much from scratch, giving the task of telling a story a completely different dimension. the first travesty is that the animated film category isn't granted the same quantum of awards as the regular feature film.
now, if you take the live action category on its own: you have the best screenplay nominations which are for the story, the best cinematography nominations for the mode of storytelling, the best director prize for the storyteller, and finally the best picture nominations for how the whole thing comes together. given that the animation category isn't fragmented into these sections, the closest you can come to defining the category is by aligning it with the best picture category.
so how does it all come together in an animated film? there's the story, of course. then there's the voice characterization, the direction, the storyboarding, and finally, the toughest part, the execution. persepolis scores in the first part, that of the story, as well as in the directorship. but that's just the half of it. getting the story to work and getting your characters to emote is the really tough part of the animated film. directing an actor well is one thing, but directing a drawing is a different kettle of fish altogether. and that's where ratatouille beats out all the rest.
* by "in the latter", of course, i really meant "in the former" :P
fair enough, but i should add that it doesn't preclude animated films from being nominated in other categories. ironically, rather than persepolis, it was ratatouille that duked it out with live action films in the best screenplay category this year.
i noticed. stupid bloody oscars.
wv: "gotmk": cultivating the milk moustache
Had you put up a post about deviant sexual practices or was that merely a glitch in The System?
Deleting posts after the first half hour of posting them is a blatant violation of blogger ethics, i'll have you know. You ought to be reported to the Higher Council of Supreme Blogginess...
Eye: It was up for a few days, actually. I didn't think it was going to get any more comments, since the whole purpose of that post lay in the discussion. Also, it's about someone I know quite well- don't want him reading it here!
I'm quite curious to hear what you have to say on the matter, though.
One-on-one heterosexual activity will do me fine, thank you. Call me old fashioned.
Hulloh? I just got an email feed about a flies and mozzies. What happened?
* the "a" was incidental. it just happened to intrude on a private party. ignore it.
Eye: Doesn't make you old fashioned, heh. Aren't you curious to know who I was talking about? You've met him, in fact :P
Flies and mozzies? That old post? Definitely a glitch in The System this time. Feedburner's gone berserk, apparently.
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