It is also, quietly, a movie about death. Gusteau is a ghost, a memory, a conscience. The entire plot is driven by a longing for a past that no longer exists.
Through a chaotic partnership (Remy hides under Linguini’s toque and pulls his hair like puppet strings), they produce the best food Paris has seen in years. But standing in their way is Anton Ego, a skeletal food critic whose reviews can shutter a restaurant overnight. Let’s talk about the villain. Most animated movies give you a cackling tyrant or a jealous rival. Ratatouille gives you a thin-lipped, black-clad intellectual who types on a coffin-shaped laptop. ratatouille.2007
Title: Ratatouille Year: 2007 Director: Brad Bird Distributor: Pixar Animation Studios / Walt Disney Pictures It is also, quietly, a movie about death
It is an incredibly subversive message for 2007 (and frankly, for today). Ratatouille argues that talent is not the property of the elite. It is a fluke of nature that can appear in the most unlikely, unwanted places. Even if you mute the sound, the film is a feast. The way light bounces off a demi-glace. The sound of a perfectly seared steak. The steam rising from a bowl of soup in a cold attic. Pixar’s animators spent months studying the physics of simmering liquids and the texture of cracked pepper. Through a chaotic partnership (Remy hides under Linguini’s
They don’t villainize the critic. They convert him.
If you didn’t tear up when Ego puts down his pen and smiles, you might be a robot. The slogan of the film is famously misunderstood. When Gusteau says, "Anyone can cook," he doesn’t mean that everyone will be a great chef. He means that a great chef can come from anywhere .