Director: sylvain chomet
Starring: Jean-Claude Donda, Michel Robin, Monica Vegas, Betty Bonifaci and Mary Lou Gauthir.
Distribution company: Sony classic movies
Production companies: Canal+, Cof Image 12, France 3 Cinema, G Images 3, Les Armateurs.
Premiere: 2003
Duration: 78 minutes
Language: English
Region: Europe and America
Type: cartoon comedy adventure film
Introduction to the film:
Paris used to be the cultural center of the western world, when the United States was still a wilderness. It contains cultural forms from all over the world, and all famous artists come here to find their homes. The French love their culture as much as they love themselves. They are like proud cocks, always proud of their own culture. After World War II, the decline of France and the rise of the United States made American fast food culture invade the world, and Hollywood movies and Disney animations blossomed everywhere. The French defend their dignity like a dying aristocrat and never want to be equal to the United States. In the eyes of the French, the United States is like a nouveau riche, mechanically creating a lot of junk culture.
Even in cartoons, France is unwilling to follow the American way. As we all know, the United States and Japan are the largest producers of animated films in the world, and in the world animated film market, the United States occupies a dominant position and becomes the mainstream force of world animated film consumption. American cartoons, such as Disney and most of the cartoons produced by Warner Bros., are increasingly pursuing technical Excellence, with more and more perfect pictures and almost extreme visual effects. French animation, on the other hand, pursues the simplicity and nostalgia of the picture, on the contrary, it pursues fullness in content, just like the masterpiece of this French animation, Crazy Dating Beautiful Capital.
Nostalgia is a feature of the film Crazy Dating Beautiful City, which contains memories of silent movies and black-and-white movies. Just like the opening of the film shows the beautiful city trio with black-and-white rough pictures, it is humorous and exaggerated, as if the original Mickey Mouse animation was made by cartoons. For example, the characters in the film rarely speak, and most of them use body language instead of dialogue. Under nostalgia, it is an aesthetic freehand brushwork style. Those fallen leaves pass by, and the touching artistic conception of the simple town arises spontaneously, which is irreplaceable by exquisite description. Of course, the Frenchman Fan Xiao did not blindly reject technology. He still used CG technology in appropriate places, such as the stormy waves on the sea, but this only played a finishing touch, not a comprehensive substitute. Because the French always believe that no matter how advanced technology is, it can't replace culture and art, otherwise it can only be reduced to industrial products.
The film is full of satire everywhere, and there are French people who despise and despise American culture. For example, in the beautiful capital implied by New York State, the torch in the hands of the Statue of Liberty turned into ice cream, books turned into hamburgers, and the goddess became obese and almost a symbol of the material world (after all, the Statue of Liberty was given to Americans by the French, which probably made her feel bad about Americans). The word Hollywood has changed from "Hollywood" to "Hollywood cuisine" in the film, where the French sense of humor has been fully exerted. With the obese citizens all over the street, it implies that the material kingdom created by American fast food culture has not made any cultural contribution except bringing obese bodies. The fall of the once-popular "Beauty Trio" seems to explain the ultimate fate of culture and art in the material world like the United States, and it is difficult to find a way out.
The real genius of the film lies in the description of the family, unlike Finding Nemo, which shows the family all the time and is extremely exaggerated for fear that the world will not know. Because there is not much language dialogue, the film's performance of family affection has almost reached the realm of silence over sound.
In the movie, the boy who lost his parents lives with his grandmother. The boy is somewhat autistic and mopes all day. Grandma found him a puppy to make him happy, but after a short happiness, there was endless melancholy. Inadvertently, grandma found grandson's scrapbook and his love for the Tour de France, so she bought him a bike. From then on, I began to cultivate my grandson and intend to help him realize his ideal. There is a lot of French exaggerated humor in it, such as grandma using her simple tools to help her grandson regain his strength, control his diet and keep his weight. The most exaggerated thing is that grandma went to the beautiful capital with a small pedal boat and followed the big boat that took her grandson across the ocean, expressing an extreme affection in an impossible way. Grandma who had no money was rejected by this beautiful city, who was money-oriented, and ended up living on the streets, with the help of the old and degenerate this beautiful city trio. In the bar, they use all kinds of useless objects to interpret beautiful music, which seems to imply that real art does not necessarily depend on material, but can be expressed in various forms. Finally, the four old ladies saved the cyclist's grandson from the casino with their wits. In that chase, French humor was exaggerated again, making the process interesting.
At the end of the film, the white-haired grandson said to the open space beside him, "Grandma, the TV program is over." This scene echoes the scene at the beginning of the film: grandma asks her grandson next to her, "Have you finished watching TV?" Why didn't you tell grandma? "The grandson left silently. I almost burst into tears when I watched the last scene. This is what the French think of as artistic rendering, a casual expression.
In fact, there is an episode in the film. Why does Bruno the dog bark at the passing train outside the window all day? It is because the puppy was run over by a toy train when I was a child, and the pain is still fresh in my memory. On the other hand, the railway crosses the suburbs, completely destroying the overall scenery of the beautiful suburbs. The barking of puppies is also the dissatisfaction of the civilization process with the destruction of nature and art.
French humor is exaggerated and sharp, and its imagination is extraordinary. It shapes a very touching family story in a minimalist way, but it contains emotions in an extremely abstract picture. It is a French animation with a strong humanistic atmosphere. The form of animation is not single, but also full of different choices.