Dec 10 2009

Top 25 Animated Movies of the Decade: Part 2

December 10th, 2009–

Ok, here we go. The top ten animated films of the last decade. There’s not much to say here that I didn’t mention in the first installment of this article. Honestly, this was such a great 10 years for animation in general, that even limiting the choices and ranking them has been a fool’s errand. But, I guess I’m that fool and the following represent what I think are the finest accomplishments of the form. Each and every one of these could be competing for number 1. Here goes…

10. Up (2009) Directed by: Pete Doctor

An old man who looks like he’s been assembled out of soggy cardboard boxes? An asian child shaped like a chicken McNugget? A house pulled to South America by thousands and thousands of balloons? Up is filled with unlikely elements but its these that push it a little further away from Pixar’s business as usual. The result is something of a wonder. Up fires off its most emotionally powerful and poignant scene right up front: a young girl and boy meet, spend years dreaming together, get married and miss those far-flung plans when life intervenes. It might just be the most touching moment in any of the Pixar films, indeed, in animation in general and a lesser movie wouldn’t recover. But Up is first and foremost a golden age pulp adventure, with forays into the deep jungle, unusual creatures and long-lost expeditions. Carl Fredrickson and his young friend are wonderful characters, and their exchanges are part of the film’s lifeblood. What impresses me is that Up is actually thrilling; the adventure scenes that take place on the flying zeppelin with armies of canine-piloted planes attacking Carl and the boy are more dazzling and breath-taking than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ever dreamt of being. Instead of being complacent, or resting on their laurels, Pixar takes a risk and rises to the occasion. A beautiful and absorbing classic, regardless of whom you might be.  

9.  Howl’s Moving Castle (2005) Directed by: Hayo Miyazaki

Japanese director Miyazaki has rightfully earned the status of animation master. Working dilligently and dutifully for decades, he has made some of the most endearing and imaginative fantasies I have ever seen. I honestly thought he might have hit his stride after 2001. But he came back with this magnificently intimate adaptation of Dianne Wynn-Jones young adult novel Howl’s Moving Castle. It is old hat to call a Miyazaki movie visually stunning, but what he accomplishes here is a new feat; he’s blending the worlds of Japanese fantasy and European fantasy into an enticing stew. Every frame has an old-world elegance and an Eastern sense of the mystical and exotic. The castle itself is one of the greatest movie spaces I’ve ever seen. From the outside it is a hulking, anthropomorphic goliath, striding across the countryside. On the inside it’s a cozy chamber that encases the characters in both their struggles and their joys. And while there is plenty of inventive joy here, there’s also a real sense of danger and sacrifice. Evoking the terror of war and the frivolity of stunted adolescence, HMC has an expansive sensibility similar to The Wizard of Oz. It is to Miyazaki’s credit that this film has all the magic and intelligence and heart that one possessed. And give Lasseter and company props for getting a great voice cast, led by Christian Bale, to deliver one of the best dubs I’ve heard for a foreign language film.

8. Metropolis (2001) Directed by: Rin Taro

Every once in awhile you will come across a piece of art that remakes or draws from another substantial work and manages the near impossible feat of creating something comparable in its effect. Rin Taro’s Metropolis accomplishes such a feat. The film is an animated adaptation of  Osamu Tezuka’s Metropolis, itself a manga version of Fritz Lang’s 1927 science fiction spectacle. Building a layered world of robotic servants and upper-class societies vying against an increasingly hostile lower caste of disenfranchised peasants, Metropolis adopts Tezuka’s simplistic and childlike illustrative style (the characters all look similar to his famous Astro Boy) and crams the frame full of eye-popping and gorgeous details. Drawing from the pop-art of Tezuka, the German Expressionism of Lang, and a kind of 40′s noir atmosphere, Taro’s movie is an epic and provoking futuristic fable. His characters aren’t lost in his staggering future city, and the movie’s exploration of artificiality vs. humanity and the social definitions of a ‘person’ are more thought-out here than in a similar live-action film like A.I. In addition, Metropolis has a stellar soundtrack made up of 20s jazz, and later renditions of blues classics. The final, apocalyptic melee goes down while Ray Charles croons ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’. Those are exactly my sentiments towards this overwhelming anime achievement.

7. The Incredibles (2004) Directed by: Brad Bird

I absolutely adore this movie. I was a huge fan of Bird’s 2-dimensional classic The Iron Giant, and as far as I’m concerned Incredibles takes everything that movie did so achingly well and amplifies it. For starters, this is a true family movie; not in the sense it is simply appropriate for all members, but rather it’s actually got something worthy and worthwhile to say about and to each member. In a time when Hollywood seems determined to crap endlessly upon the waning concept of the nuclear family, Bird’s movie celebrates familial bonds, the desire to press beyond mediocrity and how reinvigorating passion for life is best approached as an effort made by the whole unit. Take all that away, and you still have the single best superhero film of the decade; a movie that understands the silliness of the suits, the draw of heroism, and the stronger stuff that defines someone as ‘incredible’. I guess it’s also worthwhile to mention that this is both a terrifically funny and awesomely thrilling movie.  A masterpiece.

6. Mary and Max (2009) Directed by: Adam Elliot

 As an artist who primarily works in two-dimensions with pencils, paints and pastels, I have always been in awe of those who could work in that third dimension without the aid of a computer. Greater still is the talent who can not only wring emotion and meaning from lumps of clay, but actually amplify the depths of human feeling with a dimple here, a fold there. Mary and Max, the first feature length film from Harvie Krumpet director, Adam Elliot, is a tremendous work of understanding and empathy and it pushes the boundaries of what we accept as real ‘friendship’. It’s a truly heart-felt and emotionally disarming story about a lonely little girl living in Melbourne who randomly picks a pen pal out of the phonebook. The person she finds is an extremely overweight New York man in his 40′s who happens to be an ex-mental patient. Now, that might initially sound sinister, but Elliot avoids this completely. Max, the New Yorker, is  gladdened by Mary’s correspondence because it is really the only consistent source of care he recieves. See, Max is diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, and he hides away from the world in fear. Mary, hearing of his diagnosis, sets out to learn all she can about the illness in hopes of curing her friend and freeing him from his cage. What happens from there spans 20 years and is sure to bring on both tears of laughter and tears of emotion. A live action film couldn’t deliver the impact this one has. Elliot creates a drab, gray noir world of trouble and adversity for Max and Mary and the one ephemeral thing he can’t physically animate–their friendship–is the very thing that is most fully realized in this gentle, heartening tale.  

5. Persepolis (2007) Directed by: Vincent Paronnaud &
Marjane Satrapi

In graphic novel form, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis was an inspired, witty and insightful memoir. It told the story of the author’s own childhood and growing up in Tehran under the rule of the Shah and the ayatollahs. In animated form, with French voice actors (where Satrapi now works and lives), Persepolis becomes more immediate and more colorful, despite the fact it’s mostly in black and white.  Whether she is marching about with a shirt that says Punk isNot Ded, rocking out to Eye of the Tiger, or fleeing arrest due to the views or opinions of her family and friends, the movie shows all facets and sides of Satrapi’s experiences in Iran. Like Bashir, but with a livelier, more endearing voice, Persepolis stretches the use of animation to include instruction on the realities of the world in which we live. But what is most impressive and excellent about the film version is that it never ever loses its very human voice and what emerges from all those eye-catching black and white squiggles is a very real and very intriguing portrait of a girl growing up and making sense of the world she finds herself in.

4. Belleville Rendezvous (The Triplets of Belleville) (2003) Directed by: Sylvan Chomet

Sylvan Chomet’s Belleville Rendezvous is a gloriously weird and off-kilter vision. It is also so unique and singularly intriguing that I recall being surprised to learn that after breathlessly watching the entire thing, I had heard only a handful of spoken dialogue. For all intents and purposes, this could be a silent film. And yet, the characters have about three times as much spirit, charm and definition as those in films where the script runs for 300 pages. The animation is also unconventional, but it has a traditional, ink and water-color style that reminds me of the illustrations that would accompany the Tin-Tin stories. Chomet is an artist of impeccable craft and his details, although mostly wacky, are placed so perfectly that he achieves exactly the right oddball response he’s going for. Most of this one feels like a dream; it’s a story that might as well be taking place in a completely other universe, and I love that about it. The world of animation can be used to show us things we simply couldnt see otherwise, or reveal emotional truths that live action might veil, but here Chomet is introducing us to an entirely separate story where every single element could only exist in animation. None of it could be lifted out of where it is. It simply wouldn’t work. I’ve heard from those who are just put off by it. It’s too offbeat or too erratic. I don’t think so. I find it inspiring and wonderfully persistent in its oddness. My wife finds the animation so grotesque that she refuses to rewatch it. She isn’t wrong, but that’s another part of why the film is endearing to me. These aren’t cookie cutter characters or an easily digested story with the usual beats. These are the absurd dreams of Sylvan Chomet, spilled from his head and running rampant up there on the screen. I can’t think of a better use for animation than that.

3. Coraline (2009) Directed by: Henry Selick

Like many of my favorite films, Selick’s Coraline took awhile to grow on me. When I first saw it in 3-D at theaters my mind was preoccupied and I mostly reacted to the rather dark storyline. On a second viewing, at home, the film jumped to life in a way that it hadn’t in 3 dimensions. Coraline is possibly the best fantasy about the tension between childhood and the adult world I have ever seen. The stop-motion is expertly concieved and the visuals are everything that is great about Jan Svanmaker, the brothers Quay and Terry Gilliam in one delightful and gloriously dark package. The atmosphere can only be described as otherworldly. The tone is halfway between classic Grim fairy tales and that mopey sense of despoiled wonder that a rainy day can bring to a kid. There are songs, a cat voiced by Keith David, and the most frightening witch to ever terrorize a child. All of that can go to explaining the appeal, but in truth, the movie is this high up on the list because when I returned to it ….I connected with it. Whats up there on screen is so fantastical and bizarre, but in addressing the desires and dreams of a child, I found my own specific childhood reflected in its rythyms and wild imaginings. When I watch Coraline, I’m pulled in by a great story, yes, but I’m also picked up and set back down in a POV that is now a few decades removed from me. That, in and of itself, is a wonder.

2. Wall-E (2008) Directed by: Andrew Stanton

One of the great movies, Wall-E is equal parts sweet love story, social commentary and visionary science fiction. Detractors like to call the first half-hour of so brilliant and then slag the rest. They are, of course, only half right. The near silent-film that opens Wall-E is quite nearly perfect and it captures the most unlikely courtship in the history of cinema. I loved it, I did. But for me personally, if the film had remained there in the junkyard of Earth, between Wall-E and Eva, then it wouldn’t have the power and effect it has. Yes, there is some great pantomime and heartwarming character work going on in those opening 30 minutes. Theres a lonely desolation too, cataloguing the ruin of the human homeworld, that is actually rather daring for a film aiming to snare families. But what happens on the Axiom, the world Wall-E encounters there, and the subsequent adventures are what give the story it’s context and the characters their drive. Wall-E would have been a supremely sweet and delicate little movie if it had been two robots tooling around Earth. The filmmakers here are more generous and ambitious. They gave us that movie, and a second one too. One that peers through the eyes of true science fiction and imagines mankind awkwardly and tepidly trying to steer itself back on course with the help of a robot more decidedly human than all of them. Few films can conjure such iconic imagery and specific emotions. Wall-E makes the love between a trash compactor and an i-pod seem like the greatest love story every told. And when it’s over, how can you argue?

1. Spirited Away (2001) Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki

Enchantment can take alot of forms. Spirited Away hits so many different notes of enchantment, that one could get lost trying to figure out how the movie does what it does. It essentially takes Alice and Wonderland and replaces the nonsense with a thoughtful and wise invocation of self-identity and finding your place amidst a world that doesn’t always make sense. Miyazaki has never imagined a crazier and more biologically diverse universe than the one that shows up here. Asian mythology bursts at the seams and lets loose a veritable parade of indescribable creatures, phantoms, dragons, witches and even a magical frog. There is a loving, hand-made quality to the animation and the film is an embarassment of riches. When No-Face, the mask-wearing carnivore with an out-of-control appetite threatens to consume every living thing in the movie, and he’s faced down by Chiro’s sensible patience, I was won over. This could easily be a surreal and fleeting dream, but the film is anchored by its story and its central character. I am a fan of the movies because I enjoy being delighted, surprised and transported. Spirited Away does every one of those things so completely that the experience of it lingers with you after you have left it. The savor and spice of this profoundly entertaining animation leaves it’s aroma on the mundane world it inhabits.

By Nathan • Film • 5 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,