The Best Animated Films of the Last Decade, Part 2
Welcome back to the second and final installment of last decade’s best animated films. Truth be told this article was relatively close to completion for a while before I got distracted by other art projects. Then a whole bunch of stuff happened, more than I was ready for and probably more than any of us were ready for. This year has been dis-proportionally obtuse, epic in its sheer number of memorable moments yet prosaic and melancholic in execution. Initially I postponed this second half due to massive protests over whether or not the lives of black people matter (make no mistake, they do), largely because it felt in bad taste and timing to speak a few opinions about movies while people were shouting not to be killed. So, I put this off for a while. Then I got a job, so I put this off for a while. Then I also started doing playtesting for a board game in development, so I put this off for a while. I was also making my own board game, though at this point I’ve also put that off for a while. Then I moved out of my mom’s house, so I put everything off for a while. And of course, Covid-19 has burrowed itself firmly into every facet of our being for the better part of a year, so I hope maybe you might understand why this wasn’t my top priority or even pinging my mental radar for the last several months.
But I absolutely refuse to leave this incomplete by the end of the year. At a certain point, you need to honor your obligations. You can’t leave a “Part 1” dangling forever, it’s gotta be a full on “death or taxes” level commitment. And 2010-2019 was an awesome decade for animation but we’ve got to move on. 2020 was absurd, there was so much amazing art this year and for once I think people might’ve actually seen some of it, and 2021 looks to be almost equally ridiculous. This year onward is kind of like a new age, possibly quite literally for many as this disease is just definitive in so many ways, but I really still want to highlight some of the best stuff from that time when we could actually go to theaters again.
We’ve still got 10 movies to go here. Heck, before we even get to the 10, I got one more huge round of entrants that were dangerously close to clenching a spot in the 20:
The Secret World of Arrietty
The Secret World of Arrietty is Studio Ghibli’s adaptation of “The Borrowers”, and with it brings the sort of methodical, momentary approach to storytelling that has come to define the studio over its many years. Arrietty is the child of a family of “borrowers”, miniature people that live underneath a countryside house and occasionally steal things the inhabitants won’t notice being missing while trying to keep their existence a secret. In her first journey to the surface, Arrietty is discovered by a young boy resting at the house for the summer before going into surgery that could determine whether he lives or dies. Much of the film is a coy back and forth between Arrietty and the boy as they slowly become good friends while dealing with various hardships in their lives.
While other variations of this story exist, Studio Ghibli adds a quality to it that I found ultimately refreshing. It’s not hard to see why their take is so poignant, the most crucial element of this story that needs to work is the relationship between Arrietty and the boy, and Studio Ghibli being the masters of animating humanity bring all of their expertise and power to this film in a way that ultimately elevates it. There are definitely better Ghibli films, but I hold this film as an example of how even a fairly simple concept can be monumental when handled by a talented team.
Mirai
Here’s what I said in my Top 10 films of 2018:
Mirai is a simple story about the toddler, Kun, turning jealous at all the attention given to his new baby sister, Mirai, with the twist of the film coming in a series of bizarre encounters Kun has with various members of his family across different points in time. Among these include a version of Mirai from the future, and iterations of his mother and grandfather from the past, all whose collective encounters with Kun help him to develop more as a child and come to terms with the presence of his new sister…While the film is structured almost as an anthology of stories, they all contribute to a more congruous central narrative driven around Kun and his slow acceptance of Mirai, and as individual stories each is beautifully drawn and aesthetically pleasing if a little rough around the edges in overall pace. It definitely screams of personality, but at the cost of a greater sense of structure.
Mirai is gorgeous and wonderful and maybe a little unstructured, but you should absolutely watch it. This is largely one of Mamoru Hosoda’s most personal films and really shines with some strong feelings and an emotional core that digs at some visceral truths.
Locations: Netflix, Youtube, Amazon, Physical Media
Loving Vincent
I briefly mentioned this during my gripes about what is sadly still the Academy’s most broken category, but I didn’t really have a chance to dive into what it actually is. Loving Vincent is a docudrama about a postman delivering letters marking the final days of Vincent Van Gogh to Van Gogh’s brother. On paper, not a terribly impressive idea, but on canvas this film sets out to break all conventions, quite literally. The entire film is made of hand painted drawings, crafted by a gauntlet of artists that worked tirelessly for many years to create an entire feature length film in both Van Gogh’s medium and his unique style. No matter how anyone feels about the film, it’s definitely ambitious, bold, and an absolute feat worthy of artistic merit and attention. It also feels weirdly necessary in a lot of ways. There are hardly any visual works covering what is arguably THE most famous artist of all time, and now we have a film that not only tells a story of him with respect, nuance and curiosity but also manages to do so through his particular lens. This is the sort of film they should be teaching in art schools at the very least.
But is it good? Yeah, it’s alright. I was obviously very impressed with the technique, a brilliant fusion of artist inspired visual aesthetic and what I’d argue is the most agonizing execution of “rotoscoping” ever invented. The acting and portrayal of characters is well considered, and the story accomplishes what it sets out to do, but I ultimately found it a little dry. Despite pushing one of the most ambitious creative restrictions I’ve ever seen in a film, I felt the biggest thing holding Loving Vincent from being greater was not taking enough risks. It’s a very textbook execution of its idea. In a lot of ways, the film really does feels like a documentary with the postman more or less just interviewing each person he comes across. I liken the whole affair to an imitation painting: it’s masterful, coherent, and highly professional, but doesn’t manage to say anything new. That certainly doesn’t make it without value, but I can’t help but wonder what this film could have been.
Locations: Youtube, Amazon, Physical Media
Isle of Dogs
Here’s what I said in my Top 10 films of 2018:
I really wish Wes Anderson did more stop motion films…he’s shown an overall general proficiency in the medium and even within it creates a unique energy, ambiance and charm to other stop motion films…the medium seems to have a remarkably strong synergy with his general style of film making and pairs very well with his uniquely detailed and highly crafted worldbuilding. In a lot of ways, I feel that stop motion is the perfect medium for someone as meticulous and uniquely twee as Wes Anderson and his filmography…Isle of Dogs isn’t quite as strong as Fantastic Mr. Fox, but the film is still unbelievably well constructed, wonderfully shot and surprising in its tonal extremity. This is a bit of a gutsy film, not just in content and story but also in overall feeling. It’s rough, its dirty, and has a tendency to be sharp to the touch, but the handcrafted nature adds a tremendous amount of charm and the story at the heart of things is very basic and human…It’s not the easiest film to watch, but I feel there’s a lot to it, and it further exemplifies the sheer talent and vision that Wes Anderson has at his disposal.
Not a lot more to say about this one, though I do feel out of all the films I’ve seen in the last couple years, this is probably the one most in need of a rewatch. Not as a way to second guess my opinion, but because it was startlingly unique and I just really want to see it again.
Locations: Youtube, Amazon, Physical Media
The Wind Rises
Originally intended to be Miyazaki’s last film, The Wind Rises is a biopic about Jiro Horikoshi following his childhood up to his successful creation of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. As a film, it presents a rather intriguing look at the world of an artist from Miyazaki’s standpoint. In many ways, the story around this film are as interesting as the film itself, even if I don’t fundamentally agree with its overall conclusion that “every artist has a high point in their career in which they manage to achieve something greater than they ever had before, and will never achieve anything so great ever again as they must accept that all their remaining endeavors will ultimately accomplish less.” This film is Hayao Miyazaki, a man who gave so much to the world of animation over nearly 60 years, telling everyone that he feels he’s already lived through his greatest years as an artist and he will never perform at that level ever again.
Miyazaki is currently making yet another film — How do you live?, an adaptation of a slice of life novel from the 1930’s. Weirdly, the fact that he’s still making films has me in a weird spot; I’m not quite sure how to feel about The Wind Rises anymore. It’s often profound and elegant, and remarkably somber, and those are positive qualities that I will always attach to this film. But what does it mean, what should I feel coming out of it? I’m still not entirely sure, and I think that’s okay for now.
Locations: HBO Max, Youtube, Amazon, Physical Media
Children who Chase Lost Voices
I have some conflicting opinions about Makoto Shinkai. On the one hand, a director of absolutely breathtaking cinematography who gives his animation a photographic quality that exudes light and color in ways few other directors can, and a storyteller that taps into the unseen connective tissue that binds us together as a society in an attempt to reach for deeper truths. He also has a tendency to incorporate bits of light fantasy into his work. On the other hand, he’s a filmmaker with precisely one visual style which, however beautiful is still limiting him in other ways, and a storyteller who’s stories about the interesting ways in which we connect to people through this sort of ephemeral geist of familiarity is awesome when it works…and meandering and lost when it doesn’t. Children who Chase Lost Voices is probably the least “Makoto Shinkai” film made by Makoto Shinkai, but it kind of works because of that. The fantasy is bigger and more pronounced, the subject matter and themes are more blatant and forward, and the characters are all coming from very easily understandable places. It’s not his simplest film, it’s just his most concrete; all the places in which he would approach the film nebulously have been solidified, but in that concreteness he’s made a completely solid film about two teenagers and an adult traveling through an underground fantasy realm where death can theoretically be reversed at a sacred site while slowly processing the loss of loved ones. I almost think about this film in a checklist sort of fashion which I think might be a little unfair because it’s definitely much better than that description lends itself.
For what it’s worth, this is my second favorite of all his films, even though it only barely feels like any of his other work. I’d say the end result speaks for itself.
Locations: Vudu, Physical Media
Tito and the Birds
Here’s what I said in my Top Films of 2019:
As a story, Tito and the Birds is fairly tame, largely predictable and has its heart, if not necessarily its head, in the right place. But, if there was a reason to recommend this one, its for its genuinely unique visual library, one that mixes techniques of the painterly aesthetic brought to life in such films as Loving Vincent (albeit with a more digital touch) together with these mosaics of events that I can only describe as revolutionary…largely because they are told with revolving canvas, aiming to give a circular sort of logic to its storytelling and presentation. The message at the heart of the film is also good, if perhaps as subtle as a jackhammer, observing in which ways the populace is controlled and crippled by the rampant spreading of fear and misinformation. While I can’t imagine I’ll be watching it again in a hurry, it was well worth a curiosity viewing.
So, I think I’ve been a little harsh on this film (in case that last sentence wasn’t clear). Still not top 20 material for an entire decade — not that such a statement should be read as a sleight of any kind — but I think it’s a film with more impact than I gave credit. I watched the film and initially didn’t think much of it, but it planted some roots and stuck around in my head longer than I expected. I’d say that I come back to this one about once a month, maybe a particular sequence that I really liked, or just the painterly style that is ultimately fluid and energetic all the way through, and it makes me smile. I think this film might have some phantom goodness about it that I can’t identify, but sincerely feel is there. Give it a watch, maybe you can understand what I’m talking about.
The Adventures of Tintin
I’ll level with you: if you don’t like the look of this movie, of the semi-realism that Spielberg has employed into his other animated films like The Polar Express and The BLT, that’s alright. I don’t love it either, but I acknowledge that it’s an artistic choice that works better in some works than others. And honestly, the style is not that bad this time around, which is great because the movie is fantastic.
The Adventures of Tintin is a story coalescence of several early stories from Herge’s original work, told in a way that matches the characters, mood, and overall sense of adventure from those stories. It’s a big awesome global adventure that follows Tintin around the world chasing the treasure of an antique ship known as “The Unicorn”, along with his dog Snowy and with the assistance of sailor and unfortunate drunkard Archibald Haddock. It’s fairly fitting to see the creator of Indiana Jones, a character inspired partly from Herge’s original stories of treasure hunting Tintin, handling that inspiration in the medium he’s most known for, and ultimately I believe he captured the energy, excitement, and intrigue that made these stories so great in the first place.
Location: Pluto*, Crackle*, Amazon, CBS, Youtube, Physical Media
*These two services don’t require a subscription, you can literally just watch this movie for free.
My Life as a Zucchini
It’s a stop-motion somber story about orphans living together, making friends, and hoping to be adopted one day, but mostly just kinda hanging around and trying to figure things out. So, you know, a French film.
That’s a little flippant, I’ll admit, but I’m not really meaning it as an insult. French cinema does this kind of thing a lot in animation: small, personal stories about people just trying to get by in life, and learning to appreciate the moments in between. My Life as a Zucchini has all the same hallmarks in that it’s story is unglamorous and a little ugly at times, but ultimately very poignant and visceral. French animation doesn’t always need a massive fantastical set piece because I think it’s creators understand just how much can be done with the world we already live in, and when it works it’s just beautiful. This is a film that shows us kids that all come from decidedly bad places, yet surrounds them in love and compassion and an opportunity to just be children. This isn’t a film you should watch if you’re looking for a strong plot; nothing here is a surprise, nothing here is mysterious, it’s all pretty frontloaded. The characters and insight are where it succeeds, and quite often it does. When it works, it’s just beautiful.
Locations: Hulu, Amazon, Physical Media
Alright, let’s start crunching out the main list. This will be a long one folks.
10 - Coco
It’s always a pleasure to see original films come out of Pixar, especially since for the last while they tended to be spread further apart than most of us would like. The 2010-2019 stretch was loaded with sequels and prequels, many of which were consistently good but rarely great, and scattered throughout were a handful of new IP’s ranging from clumsy (Brave) to cerebral (Inside Out). Among these is Coco, a film that took the right lessons on emotional intelligence from Inside Out (a film we’ll be talking about later) and actually works backwards in an interesting way that takes what feels like a big story and continually focuses it until we’re left with an incredibly intimate journey that left me in shambles. This one got pretty personal.
Coco’s story is pretty familiar: a young boy named Miguel has a dream of being a musician, but he lives in a family with a long lineage of shoemakers who hate music. One day Miguel stumbles upon a possible missing link to a musician in his family history, leading him to an old heirloom with a curse that gets him stuck in the afterlife on Dia de la Muerta. With the help of an old skeleton named Hector, he sets out to find his forgotten ancestor and find a way home. There’s nothing especially new or bold here pressing the instrumentality, these beats all ring familiar. However, while the story itself is somewhat predictable, the strength of the film comes down to masterful execution, both artistically and emotionally, and through vivid representation of Mexican culture. At the time of Coco’s release, it was a common opinion that Pixar blatantly copied Reel FX’s earlier film Book of Life (2014), an earlier animated film also based heavily in Mexican culture and Dia de la Muerta in particular. I can feel where it’s coming from, even if it’s a bit misguided; both films aesthetics and some of their locales are inspired by the holiday in question, and both stories focus on main characters who are expected to follow in their family’s footsteps despite wanting to be musicians. Ultimately, I think the bigger question is “how is Mexican culture represented,” and as a relative outsider (my heritage is Peruvian, not Mexican) I feel that Book of Life wants to show you what Mexican culture looks and sounds like, but Coco wants you to feel it. Coco wants you to live in this place, walk a mile in Miguel’s shoes, understand where its characters are really coming from. I’ve love to get into the weeds of these films, but in the off chance that you don’t see it I’d rather leave the emotional leverage in the story’s hand, not mine.
I do want to talk about focus though. Most stories have a tendency to expand in scope; more characters, more places, bigger stakes, always more on the line. Coco is one of the few films I’ve seen where the scope keeps getting tighter. The stakes grow but ultimately become more personal. The cast grows but the number of seemingly important players continues to pare down without abandoning anyone. If you really want to see this to the fullest, look no further than “Remember Me”, a song that cracks open the story with bombast and glamour in an auditorium of hundreds and mildly excites, yet by the end of the film it’s sung in a tiny bedroom from one person to another and managed to be one of the most heartmoving things I’ve ever seen in film to this day. You can’t tell me this copied Book of Life, this feeling is too real and nuanced and ridiculously fine tuned to be simply lifted from another film. And I gotta be honest, there’s a bias here, I can’t watch this movie without being emotional compromised because the relationship between Miguel and his great-grandmother Coco, however subtle and small, hurts me. I can’t watch this without seeing myself and my grandmother in those moments, I can’t help it. This one got pretty personal.
We still have 9 movies to go, but I absolutely and wholeheartedly recommend Coco, it’s beautiful all the way through.
Locations: Disney+, Youtube, Amazon, Physical media.
9 - Your Name
So, if you’re not into anime, I think it’s fair to say you probably didn’t see this or even know what it is, so I hope you’ll just take it on trust when I tell you that this film absolutely took over anime culture for years after it came out and effectively locked in Makoto Shinkai as “Japan’s next great animation director”. I don’t know that I’d follow the thread that far, but I will acknowledge that Makoto Shinkai has a tremendous talent for creating beautiful films in the medium, with stories that excellently focus in on this lingering sensation of familiarity we experience with others. I also think he’s a bit of a gambler, because all of his films require a very particular message to land in order for the movie to be truly great; in many ways, the success of a Shinkai film ultimately depends on the dismount. Sometimes it lands gracefully (Garden of Words), other times it completely fumbles (Weathering with You). Kimi no Na Wa (Your Name in English) is a crazy case where the film doesn’t just land, it shakes the entire platform.
Your Name is a wonderful slice of everyday fantasy in which two high school students, one living in Tokyo and the other in the rural Japan, switch bodies each time they wake up. As a premise, Your Name isn’t especially crazy – but it fits a deliberately steady and effective narrative like a glove. The film is largely about how the presence of the switching causes changes in each other’s lives and relationships, and also shows awkwardly how they attempt to communicate with each other, often in a comedic fashion. There’s obviously some fantastical elements at play with this story, but compared to many of Shinkai’s other fantasy works this one is much more subdued and inferred rather than blatant, allowing the focus of the story to be on these two individuals and the bizarre circumstances surrounding them, largely to the film’s benefit.
I also appreciate how much this particular film respects the wonders that animation and especially film can achieve. I don’t inherently dislike anime, but it does often frustrate me. Japanese animation is often packed with cool ideas, detailed worlds and uniquely iconic visions, but with anime in particular there’s a terrible tendency to favor explaining over exploring. These ideas I feel work best when they are delved not factually but emotionally, a quality shared in the works of Hayao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, Shinichiro Watanabe, and Makoto Shinkai. They understand that in order to share a truly creative vision, you need to let the audience see and experience it for what it is, without just telling them outright. Even though Your Name forgoes any real explanation of the phenomenon, the film is able to deeply characterize the predicament and development of these two individuals with poignancy by not asking “how do the characters switch” but rather “how does switching affect the characters”. Your Name is a remarkable little film about the power of human connections, the sensation of familiarity, and overall was one the most impressive stories of the year. It’s not hard to see why it shook up the anime community as much as it did.
Locations: Youtube, Amazon, Physical media.
8 - Kubo and the Two Strings
We mentioned it briefly in the last one, but as a reminder there's this little company called Laika up in Oregon that seems to not care about the status quo of animation. They're one of the only companies in the world using stop motion — and doing it in a completely unique way via 3D printing — and they have no interest whatsoever in making "sequel-able" work. Here's a company trying wholeheartedly to bring charm and originality to the silver screen, and each film manages to be a culmination of all their values and techniques thus far, mixed with just enough daring innovation every time to blow away the competition. Still, that doesn’t mean all their movies end up stronger in a linear progression; I’m actually of the opinion that their first film, Coraline (2009), is the strongest showing so far, and oddly their most recent film Missing Link (2019) is their weakest. However, the metric here is insular; it’s difficult to compare Laika films to anything other than other Laika films (Missing Link was strong enough to be featured in the last article as an honorable mention). So when I tell you that I think Kubo is the 3rd strongest film Laika has made out of five films, that ranking really is the least of it.
I'm don’t want to lay out a plot summary for this one, instead let’s go straight to "why this movie". There's a few reasons — absolutely breathtaking visual design and cinematography that absolutely pushes the limit of what can be done with stop motion (at least until Missing Link), a cast of characters not only equipped with impeccable charm but also a preposterously solid chemistry that just makes every moment an absolute joy, and a vivid expression and execution of the classic hero’s journey navigated into some fascinating directions — but I think the one that matters most to me is one of stories. Kubo at it’s heart is a story about the power of storytelling, and it evaluates and observes storytelling not just on an inspirational level but also reifies it into a truly influential force. It’s about the form and the craft, about its sheer power and influence in our everyday life, and weirdly it's also a story that emphasizes the importance of finishing (hey I did a whole article about that topic, about those keyblade kiddos). There’s also some pretty awesome stuff in there about how the worth of tradition is ultimately decided by how we choose to tell our stories and celebrate those traditions, and how ultimately all traditions are fluid and will change as time goes by.
It’s just so impressive in every way, I still can’t believe this is only my 3rd favorite Laika film.
Locations: Youtube, Amazon, Physical media.
Also, speaking of which…
7 - Paranorman
Jeez, this is so tough. I said Kubo was my 3rd favorite of the Laika relay, but I’m not sure you fully understand just how tight the race is. For me, Kubo and ParaNorman are in constant contention for 2nd place, and honestly Coraline isn’t even that much farther ahead of them. What makes it tricky is that I ultimately find myself complimenting ParaNorman for basically all the same qualities: amazing visuals and animation, excellent characters, and another wonderful take on a classic storytelling style (this one is a fresh take on horror movies rather than an epic hero’s journey). I think what makes it hard is that on technical qualifications alone Kubo is the stronger film, because of course it is: Laika had 4 years and a whole in-between film to figure things out and improve the process. I think in some of these basic qualities Kubo actually does better, not just with stronger animation techniques but with an overall better ensemble of characters. I love the characters of ParaNorman, but on average I think Kubo is able to do more with fewer of them. And yet, in the endless waffling back and forth, I think more often I would place ParaNorman just above, and most of that comes to down to how the film continually defies expectations.
I’ve already gone to pretty great lengths to talk about why I love ParaNorman as an evolution of the zombie film, so I’ll simply leave it at this: In the grand scheme, I think I favor this over Kubo because ParaNorman exceeds it in the powerfully emotional way. Something I regret never mentioning in that zombie film article is that while I think mass paranoia is incredibly contagious, I also feel similarly about empathy, and there’s a heart to ParaNorman that shows the real power of that message in motion.
Locations: Netflix, Youtube, Amazon, Physical media.
6 - The Little Prince (2015)
I was definitely not ready the first time I saw this. There’s definitely a beauty in the unexpected, stumbling into a film or game or album that you know nothing about but just absolutely blows you away. The Little Prince (2015) is a Netflix adaptation of the children's book of the same name, but strangely that book also exists within the movie based on the book? I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
The Little Prince (2015) is a film about a businesswoman mother and her awfully bright daughter that move into a perfectly square little neighborhood, the intent being that this location makes it all but inevitable that the daughter will be enrolled in the prestigious “Worth Academy” (this isn’t a super subtle movie, by the by). The mother doubles down on this by laying out an exhaustive life plan for her daughter that incorporates all the academic essentials she believes her daughter will need to do well at this school and ultimately society, and her daughter is on board for all of said plan albeit trepidatiously. They move in next to an eclectic old man whose house is the only one decidedly not in a perfect fit box, and by a factor of behaviour represents everything the mother devalues in the society they live in. He starts sending paper airplanes through the daughter’s window that contain various pages of a story he wrote about a little prince he encountered on his travels of old. Eventually she starts reading them, a little longer and she becomes curious, and in not too long at all she makes great friends with the old man that lives next door. If you’re probably thinking this is a simple movie about “not being in such a hurry to grow up, and appreciating the moments you spend on that journey”, congratulations you’ve solved the first 30 minutes of the film. There’s so much more going on here.
I mentioned with Kubo that I have a particular attachment to narratives about the impact of storytelling on people's lives. The mother and child represent the current face of this world's society: everyone needs to be essential, well educated, and "grown-up". The child is young but acts like a grownup already, and it's through the story of the Little Prince that her personality is able to open up, and her worldview expanded. On paper it’s not terribly impressive, but The Little Prince handles it with aplomb by hunkering down on the truly wonderful relationship between this old man and bright eyed girl. There’s a powerful chemistry happening between these heavily contrasting elements, and these characters are just perfect for one another for better and worse. And yeah, it does get worse at times, as life and reality seem to keep getting in the way of what these two have.
I can't describe the real merits of this movie very well, I can only encourage from the depths of my heart that you go and watch it. The film clearly had a limited budget, but made it work fantastically; the characters are developed so perfectly and each of the three serve such an important counterbalance to the others; the story is paced immaculately; the cinematography is excellent, loaded with effective graphic matches and charming visual aesthetics; the animation techniques present in the different types of scenery is superb, switching between the standard 3D and a heavily stylized storybook look and feel saved for the actual telling of “The Little Prince” within the film; heck, the soundtrack is crazy good too, all the montages paired with these moody tunes that ring lackadaisical and emanate just the right degree of childlike wonder or somber melancholy as needed. There's so much to compliment here, I’m actually kind of sad more people haven’t seen it.
If I had one gripe, I’d say Act 3 is just a little too ambiguous, where the blending between fantasy and reality is no longer distinguishable and it leaves me in a weird place. Still, when the tradeoff of that ambiguity is a finale that ultimately coalesces all the ideas and themes of the movie into an absolute jam session of imagination and good times, it’s hard to be mad. I’ll never not enjoy watching this movie.
Locations: Netflix
5 - The Breadwinner
It’s fair to say that most of us in the United States haven’t lived in Afghanistan under the reign of the Taliban, and while I’m incredibly thankful for that I also think it’s important to remember that many people have. The Breadwinner is the story of Padwana, a young girl growing up under those exact conditions when her father is wrongfully arrested. In order to provide for her mother and sister in a place where women have no rights, and to look for her father, she disguises herself as a man. It’s a little depressing that this film feels like a time capsule, but the time it’s portraying still feels far to lively.
This film was put together by the vastly talented Cartoon Saloon, responsible for other outstanding movies like The Secret of Kells, The Song of the Sea and this year’s Wolfwalkers (a beautiful film that I feel may never reach an ideal audience due to be trapped on Apple TV but that’s neither here or now) and continues to showcase the studio’s impressive visual style and powerful storytelling methods. But I don’t think The Breadwinner is just worth celebrating as a good film, but rather because it allows people around the world an opportunity to feel something completely foreign, something we would otherwise likely never experience or empathize with firsthand. There are many reasons to laud The Breadwinner as a magnificent film with a strong story and fantastic animation – but if I had to pick one, here in America, I’d say exposure to the film’s world is all too important.
I’d also applaud it for being decidedly different from Cartoon Saloon’s other films. This small Irish-based company has made some absolutely choice works and almost single-handedly put Ireland on the map as a potential animation titan, but the majority of their work is built around Irish history, folklore and mythology. To see them step so far out of bounds on a film with a, to put it lightly, monumentally challenging story is not only impressive, it’s downright inspiring. It’s companies like this and Laika that continue to inspire the world around them with these intimate, powerful stories that aim to accomplish so much and never seem to fall short.
Locations: Netflix, Youtube, Amazon, Physical Media
4 - Inside Out
It's really interesting when I hear artists talk about the search for creativity, that your ideas need to be entirely original to be effective; and the flip side, which is that nothing is creative and all the ideas have already been done. I disagree with both notions here: I'm a firm believer that creativity comes from having a message unique to you, and presenting it in a way that only you can. I want to talk about Inside Out because it has exactly enough of that type of creativity.
The film takes place in the mind of Riley, a 12-year-old girl moving with her parents from Minnesota out west to San Francisco. The primary characters are the core personalities of the human mind: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust. Because Riley is generally a happy person, Joy leads the pack at their operating base of Headquarters. Joy also can’t seem to fathom what Sadness brings to the table, which causes her to undervalue her and try to push her aside. Things seem to be going well until a shift in Riley's life — moving to a new state due to her father’s work — causes a disruption at her emotional core. A combination of mishaps lead to both Joy and Sadness being ejected from Headquarters, leaving Riley in a state where she can only function on Fear, Disgust and Anger until the other two can get back. The movie switches between the events happening in Riley's life and the journey of Joy and Sadness back to Headquarters to help Riley regulate again.
There's definitely been films and works that chronicle the inner workings of the mind, many of which portray a conflict between reason and emotion, but Inside Out has something more interesting to say about the subject. Rather than create a scenario about "mastering emotion", Pete Doctor created a film that works on the more nuanced angle of "embracing emotion". For so much of the film, the lens is painted by Joy in such a way that the idea of Sadness seems completely unnecessary, but she is forced to acknowledge over the course of the film not only the essential qualities that Sadness brings but how it reinforces and contextualizes her own role in the process. And that is just one of many examples of how Inside Out ends up crafting "film mechanics as metaphor" throughout itself very creatively. Others include the the general idea that excluding or losing track of certain emotional means of expression create a supremely fractured person, and how the act of trying to force one emotion by channeling another causes more emotional harm in the process.
But what really impresses me with a film like Inside Out is that it manages to contain and express such a vast array of ideas, both creative and thoughtful, within the context of both a rather simple and also extremity relate-able story. The combination of clever metaphorical storytelling, awesome visual design and a fantastic meshing of reality with imaginary absolutely breathes life into every facet of this film, and while it may not always be 100% scientifically accurate, it more than makes up with a powerful serving of emotional intelligence.
Location: Disney+, Youtube, Physical Media
3 - Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse
To quote my top 10 films of 2018 article:
Spiderman was the most impressive animated film of the year [2018]. Visually, the film is radical in its experimentation and successfully captures a vintage comic book style. The film is animated in 3D, but it’s also completely unlike every other 3D film I’ve ever seen…Heavily stylized environments and characters mixed with literal comic book paneling and presentation create one of the first comic book movies that very closely captures the feeling and style of its source material. Spiderman is also telling the strongest overall story any Spiderman film, possibly any superhero film has told: “Anyone can wear the mask.” The entire film is serving a platter of fun action, exciting motion, and a mountain of well integrated fan service, but nothing can beat just how powerfully they handled the character of Miles Morales, a teenager who already struggles with his own sense of identity and purpose before becoming the next Spiderman…As superhero films go, this one is bold and gutsy in its direction and choices, and in almost every case from the visuals to the narrative to the music and sound design, every choice was made entirely for impact…you basically decide to do everything different. We’ll [Sony Pictures Animation] make a movie not about Peter Parker, but Miles Morales aka the first African-American Spiderman. We’ll make it animated in 3D, but design it to look more hand-drawn. We’ll put actual comic book presentation into it, from the rendering techniques to hand editing through Photoshop. We’ll make it a huge Spiderman universe crossover, and bring in alternate things like Spider-Gwen and middle-aged Peter Parker. We’ll give the whole thing a street feel with hip-hop music and colorful visuals. I think any one of these ideas would’ve been enough to draw a few beads of sweat from any suit-and-tie kind of guys in the vicinity, but this team just says “okay, let’s do all of those.” I mean come on, how do you just do that? How the heck can you know this is going to work? Well, you don’t. It’s a leap of faith. And they took it, again and again, and crafted the most incredible work of the year.
I’m still in shock at how good this movie is. We as an animation industry are still trying to match it, maybe dreaming that we’ll one day outdo it. This calibur of work is important partly because it’s so rare, but it’s precisely films like this that have the ability to change the landscape of cinema, and there are so few films I can say that about.
I think if I’m being honest, Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse is probably the best animated film of the last decade, and the only reason it’s not number 1 on this list is because I just happen to personally like the other two films a little more. I guess you could stop here if you want — Spiderman is tough to beat by basically any metric. The other two films probably aren’t better, but if you want to see them then keep scrolling down. I suppose at the very least you might learn a little more about me.
2 - Ernest and Celestine
The art of the simple story is surprisingly complicated. When you cover such little ground, you need to dig incredibly deep to find the treasures buried. Or, as Ernest and Celestine shows, you just need to dig with precision. Ernest and Celestine tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a bear and a mouse in a world where the two species have always been separate from each other. They each help the other with some small things the other wants, but in the process end up breaking a few laws and end up wanted by the authorities from both sides. Now they live as fugitives far out in the wilderness, with only each other as company.
I mentioned the simple story because Ernest and Celestine is just that: simple. The movie establishes Celestine as an orphan with strong curiosity and a peculiar nature, not blindly listening to the older mice about the bears and as a result is ostracized by her own community. Ernest is a bear that's a bit down on his luck and desperately in need of food, but no one wants anything to do with him as an outlier of bear society and as a result is ostracized in his own community. Unusual circumstances bring them together, the two rejected individuals, and they simply continue to have further and further need of each other, first physically and then emotionally, and while everything about that setup is generally pretty simple it's astounding how much charm, emotion and style they are able to conjure in this story. The film narrows so finely on the parts that really matter — the relationship and circumstance surrounding the characters, and the consequences of their life choices — and pushes it front and center for all to appreciate. Not to mention the entire film is absolutely adorable and hilarious; like, the humor isn’t the centerpiece, but it doesn’t stop this movie from being one of my absolute favorite comedies of all time.
If we're just talking animation, Ernest and Celestine excels particularly in timing, spacing and posing of its characters, as well as general pacing of its scenes and story. Everything in this film carries a solid form and adequate weight, and combined with the strong posing and staging the entire thing reads with tremendous clarity. This is a top class film in every way, and just so happens to also be the most adorable thing I’ve seen all decade. What we have here is a story that showcases beauty and efficiency through simplicity while delivering a story about finding acceptance and ultimately love in strange and wonderful places, especially against all odds. No joke, just writing about it has got me wanting to watch it again.
Locations: Amazon, Youtube, Vudu, Physical Media
1 - The Song of the Sea
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie that makes me feel the way Song of the Sea does, and that sucks because I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to articulate it and just utterly failing. The closest I can come up with is “Song of the Sea is a film that briefly helps me to believe, for a moment, that magic exists in the world”. There’s just something about its presentation, its mythology, in the cracks of its beautiful handcrafted aesthetic meant to evoke Celtic stylings, and especially in its revelations. Namely, revelations of the characters as the events slowly turn their eye to the magic right beside them. How do I even properly emphasize what makes this film so special? Let’s talk for a bit, maybe I’ll find the answer as we go.
The Song of the Sea is about a small family that recently lost their mother in the process of gaining a daughter. The 10 year-old son, Ben, blames his younger mute sister, Saoirse, for the mom's passing and doesn't treat her the way a brother should. Things get a bit more complicated when it's discovered that Saoirse is actually a Selkie, a magical being that communes with the ocean and land, and that it's her job to sing “the song of the sea” in order to send the faeries and spirits of the surface world into the afterlife, almost like a sendoff of fantasy from the real world. It's a little weird in that sort of heavily inspired by Irish mythology kind of way, but manages to tell a story that feels ancient in its bones but extremely fresh in its telling. At once it’s both a story that teaches its audience how to say goodbye to the magic of this world and also how to find it again in the world we’ve created. At least I think so? Let’s keep going.
Cartoon Saloon has identified themselves with a unique style in all of their films, there’s a unique “flatness” in their use of perspective instilled in their films, along with scenes that push visual fidelity in challenging ways with circular motifs and occasional triptych layouts. In unison, these techniques inject a hard dose of Celtic flavor and a very real “storybook” feeling that adds to the fairy tales they are constantly weaving. The Secret of Kells displays these techniques at their most raw and while I love that film to pieces I will acknowledge that maybe they came on with this presentation a little strong there. By the time we’ve hit Song of the Sea, the style has been tuned properly without reducing its efficacy; scenes that need to explode artistically can still do so, while more grounded scenes know how to relax a bit more. It’s incredible how effectively this unique perspective technique somehow breathes depth and texture into its settings and vistas, and even makes it easier to massage the animation with this incredible smoothness and personality. Though, despite the incredible visual trappings on display, it don’t mean much if the story can’t support it and goodness gracious the story is amazing. Just a bit further now.
The Song of the Sea is a beautiful blend of hero’s journey, fairy tale, and slice of life. Yes, it’s a story about two children having many encounters with numerous beings and elements of Celtic mythology while trying to fulfill Saorise’s roll proper, but it’s also a story about Ben learning to be a good brother. You know, the kind of brother that maybe learns to accept his mother’s passing and doesn’t hang an emotional guillotine over his sister’s head like it was her fault. There’s a lot of ways to blend these elements together into something workable, but the team chose a powerful solution: reflection. Every figure Ben encounters on the way extends beyond simple distraction into the territory of reflection, allowing him to see the best and worst parts of himself in others, and it’s through these difficult moments that he’s forced to grow up and face some tricky emotional hurdles he’s been suffering from. All this presented through the lens of Celtic Lore and with extraordinary refinement. Song of the Sea is a story that always feels so familiar to me, and yet so completely new and fresh every time I see it.
And that's relatively fitting. In many ways, Song of the Sea is a story of renewal, about recreating a state of wellness in the world, and that applies both on the micro level with the characters and the macro level with the world around them. To think the concept of renewal could be presented so vividly through something as simple and even counter-intuitive as tradition…well, what else can I call that but “magic”. It wasn’t an easy choice, but for all these reasons and more, Song of the Sea is not just my favorite animated film of the last decade, but possibly my favorite “film” of the last decade.
Goodness, what a decade. I think it’s easy to forget with 2020 being as completely “yikes” as it was that a lot of amazing art came out in the last 10 years. The pandemic is horrible, but if there was any upside to the state of lockdown its that there are more opportunities than there have ever been to appreciate the art we’ve been left with, by creators with so much to say. I don’t push these films forward just because I like them, but because I firmly believe they deserve to be seen.
Be safe, be well, be kind to one another, and share some amazing art. See you all in 2021.
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