I watched Pixar's "Ratatouille" last Sunday, it was one of the greatest experience I've ever get from western animation, even though the movie left me speechless... I have to write something about it, so here it is. Cooking Mama, please step aside for a sec 'cuz Remy's in the house!



Storywise/ Writing  - I can say that I'm not a big fan of western animation, why? I think it's because of the cultural differences. Western pieces always focus on production issues, like superb animations, nice models/drawings, lightings and renderings more than the actual experience the audience could get from the depth of the story. (For me, lots of Japanese childish-liked animes even have better and deeper storyline than serious western productions) ... Ratatouille is one of the very few western pieces which could break that thought I had in my mind. The story (written by Brad Bird, Jim Capobianco and Jan Pinkava) is very well written, simple but strong, exciting but heart-warming.

It takes you to the heart of Paris where a rat named "Remy" seeks his way to become a great chef following the footsteps of "Gusteau", a legendary french chef as well as Remy's mentor. Normally story about cooking are really difficult to handle and to portray the joy and excitement of making/creating foods is much more difficult, but Ratatouille had proved to me that not only the Japanese and Cantonese could make great cooking movies. It's screenplay (also by Brad Bird) is awesome and this is the first time that I felt a strong "message" being delivered to the audience through a western piece.

Direction/ Art direction - Brad Bird directing is superb and the art directions in this movie are so gorgeous, I couldn't find a word to say about them, you've got to see it for yourself.

Animations - Need to say more about Pixar's quality of animation? Even I'm not a big crazy fanboy/worshiper of Pixar but I could say their animations are one of the best we've got from the world of illusionists.

Musics - "Diverseness" is the word I will give to the music works of Ratatouille, so much variation of styles yet contained the theme, the feeling, unity of atmosphere. Beautiful works which made me wanted to get my hands on western OST for the first time in so many years. They are "Beauties" to your ears!  

(My) Conclusion - As I usually say "I'm not a movie critic/reviewer", I'm just one guy who loves movies (but not to the context of "craze") and also a person, "a guy" who loves to cook. I think Ratatouille captured the core of food creating, the love for food and illustrated them onto the screen with superb story writing as well as other quality aspects, making it one of the most memorable experience a western animation has to offer.  

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