Hello and welcome back to Kat’s Catalog. Here I will be sharing films I conceived into a list of the top ones from multiple sources that have been recommended for people to watch while they are in their twenties. However, I added a personal movie to the list for this week’s blog edition. Since I am someone who is freshly in their twenties and I am studying film, I wanted to delve deeper into these films and explain my take on each of them. Please be aware that there are spoilers integrated into this post.
The second film I will be discussing is Disney Pixar’s Ratatouille. Released in June 2007, Ratatouille was nominated for five Oscars at the 80th Academy Awards: Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Original Screenplay. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, beating out Columbia Pictures and Sony Animation’s Surf’s Up and Je Suis Bien Content and Pumpkin 3D’s film Persepolis.
The director, Brad Bird, also directed Pixar’s The Incredibles and Warner Bros’s The Iron Giant. He co-wrote Ratatouille with Jim Capobianco and Jan Pinkava. The storyline of the film was actually inspired by a real life Chef Bernard Loiseau who was a gastronomical legend from France. He died by suicide in 2003 when he found out that his restaurant La Côte d’Or located in Saulieu, Burgandy was in danger of losing its third Michelin Star. The screenwriters changed the storyline to make Gusteau, the head chef of the restaurant in the movie, die from a broken heart after a star was taken off from his restaurant.
The animators used multiple techniques to proficiently make the animated film be as realistic as possible. One of their tactics was keeping pet rats in the studio for more than a year so that the animator could study the movements of their ears, fur, paws, tails, and noses. This is a common tactic used by Pixar’s animators to keep their styles as accurate to reality as they possibly could. Some other movies the animators did this which included Up’s (2009) character Doug’s movement where they studied how dogs bodies moved and the movement of hair for the film Monster’s Inc. (2001).
Ratatouille follows Remy (Patton Oswalt) who dreams of becoming a great chef one day, but there are a couple issues: he is a rat in a heavily rodent-phobic profession and his family does not support his dream. When he discovers that fate brought him to Paris, France, he finds himself outside the doors of a restaurant owned by his culinary hero, Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett). The gourmet rodent discovers that he has a chance to pursue his passion in the food industry.
Now, a Pixar animated film about a rat who has dreams of becoming a chef may not be a movie that comes first to mind for twenty-year-olds to watch when they want to be inspired. However, the underlying message made throughout the movie along with a couple of subplots leaves the movie watcher understanding why I found this to be a necessity to watch.
The main plot of Ratatouille is about a rat wanting to make it in the food industry, yet he has to face every single obstacle thrown at him. This is a great message to share with young adults because it shows how perseverance is what makes someone successful in the long run. Throughout the course of the movie, Remy faces the critic who wrote the review that caused Gusteau’s broken heart, his family not being supportive, and the head chef trying to catch the act that Remy and Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano) is putting on. Everyone except for a select few are working with Remy to achieve what he wants to achieve. Remy continues to work hard in becoming a successful chef while learning new skills from rôtisseur chef Colette Tatou (Janeane Garofalo). This teaches the watcher that in order to successfully reach your goals, you have to seek out help from others who are willing to and want to help and ignore those who are trying to prevent you from achieving these goals.
Another important message the film teaches is the importance of setting healthy boundaries with others, even if it is family. Emile (Peter Sohn) is Remy’s brother, and once he discovers that Remy is able to have unlimited access to food, he starts to take advantage of it. There is a montage of Emile bringing more and more people to get more food from the restaurant’s kitchen, thus taking advantage of Remy since everyone else was being benefitted except for him. Although Remy did not set any clear boundaries during the film, it provides the audience with a chance to see it from a different perspective and could teach them how to realize the tendencies of being taken advantage of from others when/if it happens to them.
The final key takeaway from the film I think is important to note is learning how to stand up for yourself even if you don’t quite know how. Linguini’s character is very dynamic. He goes through many changes with his characterization throughout the film. At the beginning he was a timid and awkward character who shifts into one with a very big ego and finishes as a humble, down to earth guy who owns his own restaurant. Linguini had to learn how to stand up for himself against authoritative figures such as his boss. He, of course, had the help of Remy, but that correlates with how many situations go in the real world since people sometimes just need the help of their friends to stand up for themselves.
Despite it being a film directed towards a younger audience, Ratatouille provides a lot of insights that an older audience can take away. Providing the viewers with confidence, the story delves into the idea that nothing is impossible when it comes to going after your dream careers or goals you have whether it is cooking or a different path because in the end, “Anyone can cook.”
Katharine Svehla – Asst. Managing Editor, Prose Editor, Art & Design Editor, Layout Editor & Blogger: Katharine is a Junior at Lewis University. She is majoring in English with a concentration in General Writing and minoring in film studies. In addition to her academic pursuits, she is on the Lewis Women’s Bowling team and loves to work out, read, watch movies, and write contemporary fiction. After graduation, she hopes to get her master’s degree and aspires to find her place in the film industry and publish personal works. Some of her favorite authors include Markus Zusak, Michael Chrichton, and Alexandra Bracken.