Votre Critique de Ratatouille

Mitch · August 1, 2007, 7:38pm

Exactly!

I can’t wait to read your Ratatouille review, dude!

Remi - Ah, I see. Well, that makes sense. But yeah, you should probably go again, ya’ know, just to be safe…

Tow_Mater · August 2, 2007, 4:43pm

I saw “Ratatouille” on it’s one-month anniversery and loved it! It’s now my favorite Pixar film. I’m getting the 2-disc DVD fro sure.

lizardgirl · August 2, 2007, 5:05pm

Our cinema is going Ratatouille-crazy, and it doesn’t even come out until a few months’ time. There’s three posters, a 3D poster, and they’re even giving out little leaflets with the free Cineworld magazine with billions of quotes on the back saying how amazing Ratatouille is.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been so excited about a new film coming out, though it’s probably mostly down to all the discussion that goes on around here.

Mitch · August 4, 2007, 4:46pm

Tow Mater - Cool! I’m glad you enjoyed the movie.

lizardgirl - Haha – awesome! That’s cool that your cinema is getting

“into the act” as far as Ratatouille promotional material goes.

Welp, Ratatouille finally left our local theater a couple

of days ago. I saw the film itself on the very last day it played in that particular theater, but, needless to

say, I’m devastated all the same. There is another theater close by that is still playing the film, but

still…

'Twas so funny. The guy at the counter said, "So what are you gonna do when

Ratatouille leaves this theater?" when I went to see it for the eighteenth time

with my mom.

Archibald · August 4, 2007, 7:00pm

After something like four years of waiting, I finally saw Ratatouille today.

It was AMAZING !

I don’t even know where to begin ! Everything was great. The animation is probably the best I have ever seen. All the characters look incredibly good, and they really come to live when they move.
The sets now : they’re awesome. The funniest is probably Anton Ego’s office. And Paris… Paris is almost as beautiful in Ratatouille as it is in real life. For knowing this city pretty well, I can tell you that the Pixar’s artists really got its atmsophere right. It felt really strange and nice to see in Paris a movie that takes place in Paris.
I got the two Incredibles jokes, but I didn’t see the Pizza Planet Truck, neither did I see the A113. But now i know where they are, I’ll keep an eye out for them the next time I’ll see the movie.
The writing and directing were perfect. Brad Bird is at the top of his game. Well he was already with The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, but I think he keeps getting better. The story is depth and moving, the humor is great. There’s just too much to say.

Now, about Anton Ego revelation when he tastes the ratatouille : it immediatly made me think of something, and I’m not the only one who thought of that.
There’s a very famous text written by Marcel Proust, a French author, in one of his books : A la recherche du temps perdu. It is fictionnal, although often called “La madeleine de Proust”. Here is an english translation of this extract :

Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called ‘petites madeleines,’ which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory–this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?
[…]
And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before church-time), when I went to say good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of lime-flower tea. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the interval, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks’ windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the forms of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.

It is so like Anton Ego’s experience. Don’t you agree ?

To conclude this review, I can’t say it’s my favorite Pixar film : Toy Story and

Finding Nemo are still at the top of my list, but Ratatouille is not so far…

Of course they didn’t. French are not that susceptible. But if they’d change it, I would have been upset. Why couldn’t we see the version of the movie everybody else is seeing ? That would have been unfair. Personnaly I’m good with this line

Mitch · August 5, 2007, 4:09am

Archibald - That’s wonderful!

I’m glad you enjoyed it. Oh, and that excerpt from Mr. Proust’s book was quite intriguing and interesting. I’m

hankering to dig into the entire novel, but I’m quite certain I wouldn’t understand it. Heheh.

Haha. Well, good! I’m glad you don’t find it offensive, though I did come in

contact with a trio of French visitors who weren’t so keen on that particular phrase… (Eheh…) But yeah.

I’m glad they didn’t change it!

K3vin · August 7, 2007, 12:17pm

I saw the movie this morning and I have only one word

to describe the movie : Perfect !

Pixar is the best !

(sorry, I want to write a longer review but

my english isn’t great)

Gasduude · August 7, 2007, 3:45pm

Glad you like it, K3vin! Join the club…

Maggie_PixarFan · August 7, 2007, 3:54pm

The huuuuuuge club…

Gasduude · August 7, 2007, 5:55pm

Maggie - Haha, that’s right!

The super-duper huuuuuge club!

The_Star_Swordsman · August 8, 2007, 5:06am

I think the word

perfect speaksout just as well as a long review K3vin. DOn’t worry about it.

Mitch · August 8, 2007, 7:41pm

K3vin - ‘Perfect’ just about sums up the film to a tee. I’m glad you enjoyed it!

Maggie - Haha! Yeah…

K3vin · August 8, 2007, 9:53pm

Thanks Guys !
I’m going to see the movie one more time tomorrow !
The movie is so good ! Bravo Brad Bird ! Maggie -

There is no word to say how our club is huge ! ^^

The_Star_Swordsman · August 9, 2007, 1:15am

Don’t settle with just one more time. See it over and over again! (Just kidding)

JesusFreak · August 9, 2007, 4:19am

That typo made me laugh, TSS!

Sky · August 16, 2007, 12:20am

Well, I went and saw Ratatouille at the Australian premiere, which you’ll be able to read about soon. I was left quite dazed by the film, and I’m not really sure why… I really liked the movie at least, though. I think it was just a lot to take in at once, particularly because I had been looking forward to it for a long time. And I was also excited about actually watching it at the Australian premiere, and actually watching it, period. Did anyone else have this problem?

But I’m going to see it again on the 26th August at a preview screening, which I am very much looking forward to. I can’t stop thinking about the movie as well, which I guess is a good sign? So I’ll give a better review then.

Mitch · August 16, 2007, 2:16am

I can’t wait to read your review, rachel!

– Mitch

P.S. Yeah, I think I see what you mean. It’s rather difficult to engulf everything at once, especially when so much is going on and the anticipation is already at breaking point. I trust you had a good time, though!

Sky · August 16, 2007, 2:54am

Mitch - Thanks! I’m working on the review for the next couple of days. I have lots of pictures!

Yeah, I had a good time. Thanks for asking. I can’t wait to see Ratatouille again. There are so many moments, that I randomly remember, that are so clever and funny.

Mitch · August 16, 2007, 5:10am

You’re welcome, and have fun seeing it again!

– MItch

Gasduude · August 16, 2007, 3:09pm

You know, I think I know what you mean, rachel. After being really excited to see this movie for about a year, I couldn’t concentrate on the film while in the theater. I was just so darn amazed that it had actually come out and I was sitting here watching it…I honestly wasn’t paying too close attention. That feeling wore off the second and third times, however. :