WALL·E

It’s oddly unsettling to sit in the theatre with the feeling that you are witnessing a classic. As shown by last year’s Ratatouille though, Pixar have developed into a state of the art computer colossus; they have become the beacon for the future of film technology. Not only does their animation retain the crispness of the finest Blu-Ray transfer but they continue to develop the animated film as a mode of artistic expression.

For the first 40 minutes, Wall·E plays like poetry in motion. The film drifts along with a Kubrick-esque intelligence; it reminded me of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Director Stanton’s garbage strewn netherworld invites comparison with the dusty lower levels of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and the seedy Manhattan underworld of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. Apart from the mixed robotic wails from our adorable Earth-Class Waste Allocation Lift Loader, the opening is largely silent. Likewise the narrative confronts its apocalyptic premise in a melancholic manner, the film has the linearity of a Keaton or Chaplin picture.

It is testament to Pixar’s genius that what would be wrongly pigeonholed as a ‘kids’ film, could press issues such as environmental decay, loneliness and the dark side of materialism. Pixar and Stanton have enough faith in their multi-aged audience to keep an intellectual edge. They delegate intuitively, adding slices of humour that break the mould of pessimism around the early stages of the film. And while the film may not be as breathlessly entertaining as Toy Story or The Incredibles for example, the sheer cuteness of our Hello, Dolly! fanbot keeps Pixar’s faithful legion of young viewers smiling.

The attention to detail applied by Pixar’s esteemed sound crew (figure headed by designer Ben Burtt) serves as a natural accompaniment to the trashy gulches of the environment. The naked winds and dry rustling of garbage emanate a feeling of nothingness, of lost hope. Wall·E delivers himself from the harsh realities that come with sacking and packing the Earth’s waste through a slew of quirky habits that include collecting miscellaneous items salvaged from the wasteland and befriending a likewise alone cockroach. We are privy to his downtrodden, domesticated existence. It is a case of beautifully executed simplicity.

Wall·E, however, takes its biggest, if only stumble during the second act. The film is at its weakest when amongst humans. The film’s vacuum-like locale houses hundreds of de-westernised humans, encased in a world of equality and peace yet shielded from the basic necessities of human existence. The humanity in the picture comes from more robotic avenues. Wall·E and EVE provide the neurotic romance and the ships computer, in true HAL 9000 fashion, adds the inevitable touch of tyranny. The displacement of humane responsibility promotes a fear over the dominance of technology; a motif explored by Kubrick in the previously mentioned 2001.

One scene in Wall·E that particularly sticks out is the rocketing space pas de deux between Wall·E and EVE. Their intergalactic dance emits a lyrical hedonism that shows how the purest forms of pleasure can become the highest goods known to man (or machine for that matter). Perhaps Pixar’s finest achievement is restoring our youth and hence our belief in a transparently defined bliss.  Mr Kane may not have dropped that snow globe with Pixar around.