Well, they’ve done it again.
Pixar’s latest animated masterpiece, “Up”, is nothing short of breathtaking. The characters are relatable and reliably well-developed; the story is unique and involving; the mixture of humor and drama is almost perfectly blended and the visuals are (as expected with Pixar’s animation) absolutely stunning.
The story basically follows the interactions between a man named Carl Fredericksen and a little Wilderness Explorer named Russell as they experience imaginative adventures together in a remote corner of South America.
Specifically, the story begins with an especially moving sequence of a young Mr. Fredericksen and his adventurous and vivacious wife Ellie as they experience their life together. This sequence is made powerful and moving through the absence of any audible dialogue, with a well-chosen and touching chronological montage of the Fredericksen’s married life. In a very short time you’re permitted and invited to experience the joys and heartaches of life as they are married, as they purchase and refurbish their home, as they cope with the grief of not being able to have children , as they grow old together, as Ellie gets sick and finally as Ellie passes from this earth.
Without his Ellie, Carl is left with loneliness, her memories and their old house. Seeing him in such a state is truly sad because of the sweetness of their lives together. She completed him and when she left, the best part of him left with her.
Carl ends up losing the house and when developers are threatening to take him to a retirement home and bulldoze his house, he literally up and floats away in it! The movie continues in typically brilliant Pixar fashion with Mr. Fredericksen accidentally taking Russell on his floating house with him. During their journey, they meet a brightly colorful Snipe named Kevin, a silly talking dog named, appropriately, Doug, and a particularly bitter childhood hero of Carl’s, Charles Muntz.
Two things about this movie stood out in my thinking. First is the power of memories. Both Charles Muntz and Carl are men unable to let go of his past. Muntz, the great explorer that he was, once discovered a massive bird skeleton only to be written off by the public at large as a fraud and a cheat. Carl had lived, loved and lost the one person in the world he wanted to love. Muntz’s existence consisted solely of finding that large bird and clearing his name, in hopes of regaining something of his former glory. Carl’s was landing his house next to Paradise Falls (as his wife had once dreamed) in memory of her. Yet it is only Carl who can let go of the past. When he runs Russell off and ends up finding his wife’s old Adventure Book, he realizes that before her death she had filled up the “stuff to do” pages from yesteryear with images of her and Carl from throughout their time together. At the end of these pictures she thanks him for the adventure and tells him its ok to move on. It was only then that Carl is able to finally say goodbye to his dear wife and realize that there was a sad little boy who loved him and needed him. Muntz died in his bitterness. Carl found a son and a new reason to live.
I’ve rarely seen such a loving, tender, potent and poignant expression in cinema of the long-lasting, patient and persistent love of a husband and a wife for each other. Carl and Ellie loved each other deeply. They completed each other. They stuck with each other, through the good times and the bad. Their story truly is beautiful, yet sharply bittersweet.
Pixar has once again hit it out of the proverbial park and I cannot encourage you enough to go see this film.
There is perhaps no more powerful expression in human experience than the Story. It grabs our imagination and entices our intellect. A good story does to language what music accomplishes in a somewhat different way: it allows us to feel the ideas that words express as well as consider them rationally. The Story, the Ballad, the Parable allows us to think and to feel and to relate and to consider. Great stories posit great Truths, but they also allow us to express and imagine those great concepts. They captivate our creativity, using both the mind and the heart, the analytical and the sensual and the emotional.
In the biblical narrative of Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection we can know some things. Christ was born to a human mother. Jesus grew and learned. He preached and ministered. Jesus never sinned and He died and He rose again. These things can be known analytically from the Biblical accounts. Yet, in Narrative, I can feel the joy and excitement of Jesus’ birth. I can sympathize with my High Priest who first sympathizes with me. I can feel horror and disgust at His scourgings. I can mourn with His disciples at His death. I can weep at what my sin did to my Sin-Bearer and Savior. I can experience pure exultation and surprise at His resurrection and I can glory in His exaltation. Through narrative I can indeed know the objective truths of Scripture, yet I can also feel and more fully understand those Truths, in Christ.