Ladies and Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, the Pixar Playlist
We’re almost caught
up with Pixar’s films, only 2 remain at time of writing, Turning Red and
Lightyear, the latter of which I have yet to watch. But before we get to them,
we’ve got an adventure on the Italian riviera, with sea monsters. It’s Luca.
Luca is largely the
brainchild of Enrico Casarosa, who loosely based the story on some of his own
experiences growing up in Italy. Writing the story is Mike Jones, who was also one
of the writers behind Soul and Jesse Andrews. Casarosa would direct, it’s his
first directors’ credit in film, but he’d been working as at artist at Pixar since
Cars, joining their senior creative team from Coco. He had also directed a
short called La Luna back in 2011.
There were some
roadblocks when it came to animation as COVID-19 lead to the shut-down of the
Pixar Campus, so all the animators were working from home. Though not before
some of the artists got some reference photos from the Italian Riviera to use
as a guide for the film’s locations.
Luca was released on Disney+ in early 2021, some of the Pixar Animators were annoyed that it was released for free whilst Raya and the Last Dragon, a Disney Animation Studios Film had a premium price for 3 months. It did have a release in a few locations, but made back a mere $49m on it’s… Wikipedia doesn’t state the budget but $200m is the standard for Pixar, whilst having to adapt to working from home may have caused additional expenditure.
Luca tells the story
of well, Luca. Luca Peguro faces a standard coming of age dilemma where he
desperately wants to do something but his parents forbid it. Unlike with Coco,
the reasoning is a bit more understandable. See, Luca is a sea monster and the
nearest town is famous for hunting and killing sea monsters.
And Luca doesn’t
actually care about the surface much, until he meets Alberto Scorfano, a very
confident sea monster who’s been living on the surface for years in isolation.
Alberto helps Luca come out of his shell, but this has his parents wanting to
send him away, where he can’t consider being on the surface, so as is tradition
at this point, he runs away.
Sea Monsters in this
story take human form on land, but their true scales begin to show whenever
they get wet. Alberto’s true dream is to roam the world on a Vespa (Disney:
$$$$$) and to that end, they head to the nearby human town of Portorosso.
Conveniently enough there’s a town triathlon (or 3-event competition, 1 of the
events is pasta eating because… you know, Italy) and it offers enough money to
maybe get them their vespa.
To that end, they
partner up with a girl named Giulia Marcovaldo, a social outcast who knows the
triathlon well enough to help them train for it. Up against them is the
obnoxious jerk Ercole Viscanti… I don’t know if it’s the voice or the fact that
they call him too old for the competition, but when I first watched it, I
thought his sidekicks were actually his sons, which made everything more
uncomfortable. He’s still a grown adult trying to win a kids’ triathlon so make
of that what you will.
Can Luca, and
Alberto get what they want without exposing themselves? And is a Vespa what
they truly want?
I guess I should
just get into the allegory. Alberto and Luca are outsiders because of circumstances
they have no control over and their ‘kind’ is feared and hated by people who
consider them monsters. It’s definitely an allegory, the intent appears to be a
racism one which makes sense, it’s hardly the first time a Disney story has
gone down this route.
There is also a
belief that the story is an allegory for being LGBTQIA+ and this analysis has
merit. In this film, Alberto and Luca can hide amongst humans, not being
themselves to please others, something people of differing skin colours tend to
be unable to do. The writer himself has said that’s more accidental and he was
going for the racism allegory, but is happy that members of that community have
found solace in it.
Still, whichever
allegory it was intending, the execution has one fatal roadblock and that’s the
resolution. Everything is resolved way too easily and people just start
accepting sea monsters out of the blue. Even if you ignore the allegory and
take this story at face value it feels it feels rather weird that the town
would rally behind them. I know Ercole was a major hate-sink and the town was
just looking for an excuse to turn against him, but it still felt weird.
OK, let’s talk
characterisation then, Luca is a dreamer but too shy and awkward to come out of
his shell, and that’s where Alberto comes in. I should mention this is 2021,
the year Disney decided it didn’t like people named Bruno and had 2 consecutive
animated films use Bruno as an insult. Encanto is not a Pixar Film so won’t be
on this playlist, we’ll see if I get around to it at some point.
Alberto uses Bruno
to mean a nagging voice in your head, a voice holding you back, Alberto’s
advice works on Luca but in truth he has his own Brunos in his head, he’s just
using a façade of confidence to mask it. That confidence is tested as Luca and Giulia
bond over a love of learning, leading to increased jealousy that ultimately
leads to the second act breakup. Cliché as it is, at least its built up for a
while.
There is a portion
of the fanbase that believe that the relationship between Luca and Alberto
might’ve been something more than friendship, and that would certainly explain
the level of jealousy. Recent stories about the higher ups at Disney censoring
out LGBT+ content from their films does give some credence to this, but the
biggest counter is that the story is based on the friendship between Casarosa
and his best friend at the time. Casarosa is married with a child so I don’t
believe it was conceived that way. But that doesn’t entirely invalidate this
point of view, it’s certainly open to interpretation.
Its nice that
romance isn’t a core focus, but that’s not really a Pixar thing anyway. Anyway,
we find that Alberto’s father ran out on him and his mother is… I guess away
with the usual Disney mothers, swimming with the fishes in a whole different
context to everyone else. His long period alone would explain why he forms such
a strong attachment (platonic or otherwise) to Luca and why he completely
isolates himself when that attachment begins to break.
Still, part of the
attachment is of a narrative he concocted for himself, and in the end, he
chooses to make the selfless decision of sacrificing his own dreams to help
Luca, in a rather heart-felt goodbye scene at the end.
Giulia doesn’t have
major character development; she serves as the straight girl to the others
naivety. She’s their trainer for the triathlon and teaches them a bit more
about the world they inhabit. I’m glad she’s not stupid, immediately seeing
once Alberto is outed as a sea-monster that Luca is also, despite Luca’s rather
selfish attempt to cover that up.
In a nice of pace,
her mother is not dead, she only appears in the credits and isn’t ever animated
but she’s very much alive. Kudos on having the father’s missing arm be a birth
defect and not the result of some horrifying accident, it adds credence to an
already pretty awesome character.
Luca’s parents come
to land and attempt to find him, but this is a comic relief subplot, them
coming around to Luca staying on land is handled mostly off-screen which is a
little disappointing.
The animation is
spectacular, there’s no sense this film was animated any differently than
previous films, despite the animators working from home. Disney/Pixar have
always pushed the boat with water animation and this is no exception, the sun
reflection over the bay looks absolutely phenomenal. The character designs are
mostly appealing and move naturally given the circumstances.
Luca is an excellent
Pixar Film, balancing a coming-of-age story with a nice creative twist with the
usual stunning visuals and some great character and humour. The allegory
doesn’t entirely stick the landing but it resonates emotionally.
#1 Inside Out
#2 The Incredibles
#3 Up
#4 Finding Nemo
#5 Finding Dory
#6 Luca
#7 Soul
#8 Coco
#9 Incredibles 2
#10 Toy Story 3
#11 Toy Story 4
#12 WALL-E
#13 Toy Story 2
#14 Onward
#15 The Good Dinosaur
#16 Brave
#17 Toy Story
#18 Cars 3
#19 Monsters Inc
#20 Ratatouille
#21 Cars
#22 Monsters University
#23 Cars 2
#24 A Bug’s Life
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