ratatouille the movie directed by brad bird

there are a few movies that i watch and don't even think of writing about them, let alone sit down and carefully organise my thoughts into a blog review or a synopsis.

ratatouille has made a lavish entry into my thoughts. i loved every bit of that pixar animation. the last time i enjoyed an animation so much was when i was with the lion king, disney's production in 1994. simba, the new cub born to king mufasa and queen sarabi took my breath away just like remy did this time.

i must add that the only creatures i really feel disgusted with in the world are rats. and the last animation of rats, flushed away did not inspire me to write about it.

however, a blue rodent, remy (voice by patton oswalt) in the latest brad bird concoction is intelligent, honest, clean, and has a talent - an exquisite sense of smell. his culinary aspirations take him to a five star restaurant where he becomes a chef!! it is the height of imagination but then the movie starts with the most popular french legend chef, auguste gusteau's (brad garett) new book, everyone can cook, so i guess why not a rat huh?

remy is a rebel, a french country rat who is aware what paris looks like even before seeing her. he walks on his feet because he doesn't want to get his hands dirty. he is refined and different. he refuses to believe what his rat clan say about humans and how bad they are. he watches gusteau on a popular tv cooking show while stealing from the kitchen of an old lady and he is impressed with what gusteau says and is positively inspired by gusteau's culinary skills. none of the other rats share his interest in haute cuisine. and YES!! he also READS!! :-) how does one not freak out with this movie?

ratatouille is a co-production of pixar and disney. preceding the movie, pixar serves a short animation called `lifted'. in it a novice alien pilot tries to abduct a sleeping boy with disastrously amusing results. the short, acts as a good appetizer but i think it would have been better if it had something to do with some alien rebel.

when remy is accidentally swept into a storm drain, he turns up at gusteau's restaurant in paris, which has fallen on hard times. gusteau is dead, the place has been demoted to three stars - and the place is taken over by skinner (ian holm), a scary and cunning man who wants to own the place.

fate lands remy into linguini's (lou romano) hands. the spirit of gusteau (though we are made to understand that he is only a figment of remy's imagination) encourages remy to surreptitiously turn a soup which is ruined by the garbage boy linguini, into something delectable. he therefore saves linguini’s back by fixing the soup. this leads to linguini being hired at the restaurant and when the talentless linguini is ordered to duplicate this masterpiece of a soup he is forced to form an odd culinary partnership with remy which eventually brings gusteau’s restaurant renewed fame.

they come to an unusual method of communication. hiding under linguini's toque......am impressed baby...:)....remy pulls and directs the young man's hair like a puppeteer to steer him to the proper ingredients and spices.
linguini falls in love with colette (janeane garofalo), the only woman in the gusteau kitchen, and with more than a little help from remy.

again with the help of remy, linguini finds out that he is gusteau's son and has been willed the place. everything is fine until a time when linguini reprimands remy and he walks off. linguini is unable to serve his special dishes and resigns to his room until remy shows up and linguini is forced to tell the truth to his assistants and cooks in the kitchen.
they all take off their aprons and leave. we are meant to understand that everyone thinks he is crazily bullshitting.
seeing everyone leave including colette, linguini hangs his head down and sighs! linguini and remy are out of ideas until remy's dad (brian dennehy) and the whole rat family come to the rescue.

the climax which ends everything beautifully is when anton ego (peter o'toole), the snobbish and fearful critic enjoys the dessert (ratatouille) prepared for him which is the same dish his mother used to feed him when he was young. he insists meeting up with the chef.

an excellent movie about love, inspiration, honesty, bravery, appreciation and aspirations. it is about fulfilling one's dream and going beyond preconceived boundaries. it is about capabilities and accomplishments. it is about desire and intent. i loved it for its sheer inventiveness and artistry.

with astounding animation, inspirational messages, and an endearing cast, it is perhaps one of the best animations i have seen. i think some of the characters look physically modelled after the actors. bird does a brilliant job of facial expressions and dialogues. it plays against expectation and raises the bar for humour. the music perfectly complements the visual and i noticed that it slowly helped transport us into the story at every stage.

a delicious animated delight which will most definitely satisfy your appetite. it is a fun movie, something that may not make you laugh throughout but will make you leave the hall with a smile. also fast pace with memorable characters and pretty good humour. it is sophisticated enough for the delight of the adults and simple enough for children to enjoy it. a film above mediocrity and is almost close to being genius.

borders book club on the sailor who fell from grace with the sea

its the friday we have been waiting for. the book club day.

dr roy and i arrive at starbucks 15 minutes before time and we see faridah sitting there. this is our first encounter with her.

i pick up the god delusion by richard dawkins and am browsing through it when this gentleman comes to inquire about the book discussion we are having here. later i come to know that he is sam.

a while after that, an elegant and charming couple, oliver and penny walk in.

brian and jade complete the circle.

sam has not read. he just wants to listen. it is his first experience.

brian summarises the story basically for sam's knowledge. he talks of noboru, fusako and ryuji and their connections to each other.

it is now open to the floor.

faridah says the writer's background has affected the story.

like i said in my review, mishima the man and mishima the author cannot really be differentiated.

faridah also mentions the time, set way back during the war when people were trained to think like soldiers, samurais.

penny doesn't think it is about any one time in history. this book is more in the universal sense. she talks of the children. repressed kids.

well, yes imagine locking a child in his room at night. is it unthinkable?

penny has much to say. she is lively and full of views. the mother doesn't understand the child. she keeps her references to mother, son and sailor. are the names of these characters of any importance at all? the mother obviously knows something is going on with the child to have locked him up.

brian says something interesting. he sees it as a reflection of fear of childhood that the adults have. childhood denotes freedom and society is against it. he raises a simile to the pressure cooker, when you don't open the cover to release the steam, it comes out all warped and twisted.

oliver is sweet. he speaks politely and contributes a lot with his short sentences. reminds me of a time when i had to make a summary of this whole long story and i made such a terrible mess of it. he would have come out with an A+.

he says the boys dehumanise their surroundings. adult life is a bit dull. and jade laughs...a bit is perhaps an understatement.

brian insists that the whole thing seems phoney, superficial, he cites the murder of ryuji as an example. it is almost like a pagan sacrifice taking place on some wasteland, like a holy place, way out from everyone.

orlando feels a strong sense of japanese values. regimented and compartmentalised lives. along with him, penny adds their experience in disneyland and how they witnessed the japanese girls wearing the same type of dress like a uniform and carrying the same coloured balloons.

regimented or discipline? hmm.

we side-track a little. faridah talks of malaysians driving luxurious cars but still carry bullock-cart mentalities. and she goes into the malaysian mindset of desiring professionals out of their children, you know like engineers, doctors and the like. and children who take up art, theatre and other jobs are a definite let-down and disgrace.

brian and jade stress on a sense of loss. the loss of a dream.

of ryuji's? of fusako's? of noboru's?

as i ask this, i still cannot get over mishima's brilliance.

dr roy asks a general question. what do we think about ryuji, the sailor?

oliver says there is a parallel with noboru, the boy. they both yearn for the same thing. the freedom and to be away, the reason, noboru is disillusioned when ryuji wants to give up that heroic life for a dreary monotonous, good for nothing land life.

brian says ryuji is a good man. an innocent man. the tragedy is really his. neither does he achieve the glory at sea nor on land.

loneliness is apparent in all three. they are contained in their good lives, they excel in what they do, but they are all lonely. isn't that a misfortune in itself or an irony?

we touch on the actress and penny says she represents everything that has gone wrong with modern japan.

oliver compares the superficiality of the actress to the trust and innocence of the sailor.

brian says he is aware there is this unattainability of things, everything seems exquisitely beautiful but just a little beyond reach, and everything is wonderful but brittle.

it is affecting.

penny is quick to state, but then isn't that life? the grass is always greener on the other side right?

and brian says, yes but mishima doesn't point it out. he doesnt use the language, but it is still suggested.

i think back to his brilliance.

and it is here that i must mention how much i love his description of the sea when he compares and depicts it to be a woman. penny reads out that part to the whole group. and again, i fall in love with that paragraph.

brian talks of the culture. paradoxical. and surprisingly though, the japanese are at ease with the contradiction.

faridah and jade talk about the softness and care of the japanese people. jade points out that the actress says presents don't matter, it is the wrapping that's important. the little things and their presentation and attention to details seem to hold priority.

but then, these are the same people who have come up with the popular mangas (comics in nihongo) which are adapted into animes (animations) full of sex and violence.

brian agrees.

we talk of superficiality, artificiality, and manipulation.

dr roy mentions how manipulative noboru is at the chinese dinner where his mother and the sailor are about to inform him of their togetherness.

brian then asks her if she has enjoyed the book. she does not quite know how to answer that. the beginning is not very impressive but then she has not completed the book, so an opinion will not justify the question.

penny loves the description of the kitten's death. it is mishima's magnificence in directing the readers to the conclusion of the ceremony performed on ryuji at the end. so much is reiterated with silence, indication, and absence.

an outstanding writer.

oliver observes the contrast of portraying a homely pet, fluffy and loving, verses the heartlessness and violence of the act performed on it.

the structuring is superb. the two seasons. summer and winter, and with it, the attestation of the passage of time and the wonderful sunshine of happiness in disparity to the bleak and cold of disasters.

the japanese have to involve the weather in everything, and appropriately so too.

brian pretty much wraps it up by saying, mishima was incredibly brave as a writer.

lydia, the book has significance even if the title does not appeal to you. so do read it when you can. sarah, thank you for reading my blog. i am sure you would have contributed plenty if you had come for this one. kim, we missed your warmth and input tremendously.

the three of you missed the sailor and the sea, please don't miss the old man and the sea by hemingway, its only an hour's read (126 pages). don't want to miss your ideas this time.

ciao. until next month then.

the sailor who fell from grace with the sea by yukio mishima

saturday aug 4, 2007

i make an appointment to meet a client at klcc. i reach there early so i rush up to kinokuniya on the 4th floor and frantically look for yukio mishima's (his real name being kimitake hiraoka) book, the sailor who fell from grace with the sea.

when jade first suggests it for our book club, i look at the title and it puts me off. what kind of stupid title is that i think. but having a love for books must mean that i take care never to judge a book by its cover, and in this case by its title too. so i leave my thoughts behind.

this is my first encounter with mishima. i start reading the 180 paged book. it takes me less than an hour to finish 110 pages. it is a smooth read. no complications. nothing special. i need to go now. and will come back tomorrow to complete the book.

sunday, aug 5, 2007

i have only half a mind to go back and complete the book. i must mention this. perhaps for some reason if i had not gone back to read it today, it would have been one of my greatest regrets.

i complete the remaining pages in half an hour. what can i really say? i close the book and close my eyes a while. this is conceivably the most disturbing book i have read. i think to myself that the author must be dreadfully warped to end the book like that. so i decide to read about him.

sure enough, now that i have read him, possibly i understand the book better.

i ought to mention that mishima san performed seppuku in 1970 at the age of 45.
after having read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima i think his life is as interesting and depressing as his death.

the book starts with a 13-year-old protagonist, noboru narrating his everyday thoughts. he lives with his widowed mother, fusako. they meet a sailor, ryuji who falls in love with her. so everything seems fine until ryuji decides to give up the sea to embrace a life of love, comfort and security ashore by marrying fusako.

noboru belongs to a clique of 13-year-old boys who consider themselves geniuses and think that the world is hypocritical, empty and meaningless. they are intelligent and act against societal norms. they are disgusted with their fathers, something which surprises me until i read mishima's relationship with his dad. their speeches contain almost shakespearian brilliance despite bordering insanity most of the time.

a sailor giving up the sea is perceived to be one of the worst kind of betrayals by these boys. someone who is full of bravado and masculine glory of searching for the horizon and always leaving women behind is now changing his ideals with inklings of romantic love, home, hearth and comfort. noboru who first idolizes him cannot forgive this deceit. ryuji must somehow remain a pure hero, uncorrupted by sentimentality. noboru must do something desperate to avenge this betrayal and so the boys secretly think of his elimination.

the group has it fatally wrong. this book deals with the cruel and animalistic nature of adolescent boys and their unreasonable thought process. their actions are repulsive and perverse. their obsession with death and their belief that a man can only prove his freedom by killing is totally distorted.

the fact that mishima allows noboru’s beliefs to remain unchallenged, and even to prevail, suggests that this sort of credence reflected his own views. and having read about him, i know it is okay to make that conclusion.

in fact, i can feel mishima's anger and disappointment throughout this book. mishima the man and mishima the author is not much different. having said that, i still think this book should be looked at separately and appreciated for its paradoxes, of beauty equated with violence and death, of passion and careless thoughts, of the yearning to be loved and the freedom away from it, of the ugliness and beauty of life and finally of courage and fear.

the story is elegantly wrought and mishima has distilled it down to its essential elements. it has surprised me with its complexity towards the end because in the beginning it seemed very simple. but slowly i got sucked into his bizarre and glorious (if i may describe as that) world. i will most definitely venture into his other books. since it is simple reading, its great for beginners. and though the theme is pretty disturbing, it does reveal some truths about human nature.

above all, i think it is a nihilistic masterpiece!!