The Stars Speak In Unison
Indiewire rating: b+
Translation & Proofreader: Mao Jun Ah Nuan
Animation giant Pixar's latest masterpiece, Mind Agents, directed by Pete Doggett, has the same pros and cons: a dazzling brain-hole setting. Think about it, in a world as complex as Ned Herman's Brain, everyone (as mentioned in the Easter egg, as do cats, dogs, and cats) has a brain control room, run by five core emotional ministers. Similar to many childhood classics, the film intuitively presents the bittersweet process of growing up in a metaphorical way, embedding an unexpectedly profound philosophy of life in a warm or stupid prank.
But in order to express this sublimation and set off a thrilling atmosphere, the film needs a lot of settings and explanations to build the entire story framework. So it's no surprise that voiceovers appear frequently, and sometimes even deliberately pause the entire picture to explain a word. Compared with the dashing "let the picture speak for itself" in Toy Story or the first-person narrative of "Flying House", this is indeed a bit of a doctrinal. And sometimes these hasty explanations, although they explain the reasons or the next plan, and successfully make the audience pay attention to the structure of the film Kit Kat, are too rash and deliberate, but they lose the room for imagination. But in any case, once the projector in the dark starts running, this kind of criticism is like a booster after the rocket lifts off, unconsciously disappearing; and this short 94-minute movie is completely full of Pixar sweetness by the second half of the film, which is so tender and sweet that people laugh and can't help but feel sad.
Riley (voiced by Caitlin Diaz) is an 11-year-old girl who moved from Minnesota to Los Angeles because of her father's job transfer. Riley was a very happy child while in Minnesota, as the Happy Chancellor (voiced by Amy Poehler) proudly proclaimed. She is the Minister of Riley's Emotion Command, which also includes the Minister of Grief (voiced by Phyllis Smith), the Minister of Rage (voiced by Lewis Black), the Minister of Disgust (voiced by Mindy Kalling), and the Minister of Fear (voiced by Bill Hader). However, soon after moving, everything seemed to be in disarray.
In addition to adjusting the mood, the ministers were also responsible for classifying and collecting Riley's memories. Depending on the mood at the time of the event, they packed their memories into glass balls of different colors. The memories that contain these five emotions are called "core memories", and they dominate an island of Riley's personality – it looks like an exclusive floating island amusement park tailored for Riley's various personalities – honest, friendly, family-loving, silly... And hockey. However, after a quarrel at the headquarters, five precious memories were sucked out of the glass ball, and the Minister of Happiness and the Minister of Sorrow decided to chase them back. This meant that the Pleasure Chancellor was on his way at a very critical moment: just when Riley needed to adjust to his new school and home, shake off old friends, and try to join another hockey team.
The film switches seamlessly between Riley's daily life and his inner grandeur—the legendary journey of the two ministers of joy and sorrow back to headquarters—and strikes a clever balance. In her inner world, the Minister of Happiness navigates the "Long Memory" (accompanied by an annoying gum commercial song, which becomes a recurring strip); over the mountains through "Abstract Thinking" (she is first a three-dimensional image, then a series of 2D images, and finally a straight line); catches the "Thinking Train" and playfully passes through the "Dream Continent" in the shape of a film studio; of course, she has to move out of Hitchcock, and the journey ends with a playful reference to Hitchcock. It is also during this journey that the film vividly shows a dazzling imagination and an interlocking sense of humor.
However, the most touching thing is a cute little detail that corresponds to Toy Story. The Happy Minister isn't alone, she finds Riley's childhood friend Bing bong (voiced by Richard Kinder), who travels with her in a makeshift patchwork of song-driven rockets. At that time, the theater was full of old fritters reading countless films, but they were all moved by this cat and dolphin elephant mixed blood wearing a funny hat and sobbed, which was really rare to see.
When the amount of information is already so large and still full of possibilities worth mining, it is inevitable that there will be some places that are dense, such as the portrayal of the Minister of Fear, which is basically just broccoli and clowns. Similarly, the early mood ministers seem to be more monotonous and lackluster, but this is the foreshadowing for the development of the plot. After all, the Minister of Happiness must always be so positive, and the Minister of Sorrow must apologize to others from time to time for his depression of will, and each Minister has his own position. But as the plot develops, the movie is getting better and better, and it is becoming more and more clever and humorous.
In the end, what this movie wants to tell us is that growth means understanding that every emotion is equally important to us, that they are like pieces of a puzzle, and that only by combining them together can we piece together a complete self; and as we grow, each emotion becomes more complex and distinct, and this process is understandable, because they will also grow. Of course, they are likely to often be freely combined, just as the disgusted minister wants to imitate the happy minister, and eventually becomes ironic, and if you think about it, this is not also very reasonable.
Despite the beautiful graphics (especially the real-world part, which is really cute), this is probably not Pixar's most perfect work. But no matter how you initially protest against the movie's flood of God perspectives, you'll probably end up putting all that hostility behind you. This is not only because the film talks a lot about "controlling your emotions", but also because when we are already afraid to see the gradual Disney-ized Pixar (interestingly, although the Disney logo occasionally gets a boo or two, Pixar is popular everywhere), "Mind Agent" is not only light-hearted and witty, but also weird, but also thorough and sincere to tell a truth about life. When the end credits came out, we saw an elaborate little Easter egg, the brain disorder and flushing of the cheeks of the other supporting ministers in the mind control room (I wish I could have made a movie for them too); seeing here, "emotional exposure" [literal translation of "mind task force" formerly known as "inside out"] is probably the best annotation you feel at the moment. Your lovely Minister of Happiness will also happily embrace her best friend, the stocky Minister of Sorrow, because that's how Pixar playfully finds poetry in the emotions themselves.
Web Links:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/cannes-review-pixars-inside-out-with-amy-poehler-bill-hader-mindy-kaling-and-more-20150518
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