The theme of Pixar’s Up, at least
to me, revolves around letting go off the past and looking forward to the
future. The first 10 minutes of Up is probably the most emotional scene of all
of animations and it’s even more touching than other love stories out there.
Carl is a timid guy who does not like to speak much, while his partner Ellie
has a strong personality which is a complete contrast. One thing they have in
common is their love of adventure. Ellie’s dream is to fly to South America and
live in a house at Paradise Fall – the land lost in time- for an adventure of a
lifetime. Carl and Ellie got married, did all the cute couple things. Their
goal is to fly to Paradise Fall, so they start saving. To quote Remy from
Ratatouille “the predictable thing in life is its unpredictability”, they need
to use the savings for other emergency cases. Sadly, Ellie fell ill and passed
away with her dream unfulfilled. It is amazing how Pixar can make you care so
much about the two characters with just 10 minutes into the story almost
without any dialogue. We, the audience, care because we saw their sincere
feeling and care for one another and we can’t help but feel sorry for Ellie and
Carl that their dreams did not come true. The first 10 minutes show us clearly
Carl’s motivation to reach Paradise Fall with his house tied with balloons.
Along the way to Paradise Fall,
Carl was accompanied by a little boy, Russell, who is a wilderness explorer. He
has awarded all the badges except the badge for assisting the elderly. We later
learn that the main reason he wants to get the assist the elderly badge is
because his dad had promised him that he would attend Russell’s ceremony once
Russell is promoted to be a senior wilderness explorer. Along with his
innocent, happy-go-lucky personality, Russell actually is having a rough
childhood. He doesn’t have a close relationship with his father and he couldn’t
talk to his father because a girl named Phyllis said that Russell is bothering his
dad way too much. The backstory of Russell here is subtle because we didn’t get
the full explanation of who Phyllis really is. I will devote a section talking
about Phyllis and Russell’s relationship with his family.
We saw that Carl did manage to
fulfil Ellie’s dream by placing their house close to Paradise Fall. Carl,
although he fulfilled Ellie’s dream, was not that happy. He opened Ellie’s
adventure book and saw their memento of photos from young to old. One lesson we
can learn is that adventure is not always about exploring the wilderness. What
happens to us every day, whether it’s mundane or it’s extraordinary, is an
adventure that we should cherish. We should not stand still in one place repeatedly
thinking of the past and regretting what we should have done differently. There
is new adventure out there for us to embark on and live a full life. We saw at
the climax of the animation that Russell threw away his sash of badges to save
Kevin. We also saw Carl threw away most of the furniture to lighten his house
so that it can fly. I think this is a beautiful symbolism from Pixar. The old
furniture in the house symbolizes the old memories between Carl and Ellie which
Carl dwell onto and drag him in one place without moving forward and enjoy
other great adventure out there. I’m not saying that memories are useless and
we should throw everything away. My point is that we can’t keep holding on to
the past and lose sight of what lies ahead of us. You never know what tomorrow
is going to bring to you.
We can see how Carl’s character
develops from a grumpy, selfish, old man who refuses to interact with other
people to a kind person who cares about Russell, Doug, and Kevin. Those are the
people and things that matters to him now. He also said “it is just a house.” Which
means he can now let go of his painful memories and begin to start a new
chapter in life. Who would imagine an animation can be that deep filled with
philosophical ideas?
No comments:
Post a Comment