A Pixar Animation Studios Film
Written and Directed by Saschka Unseld
**** (four stars)
In the spirit of this seven minute feature, I shall try my best to make this review equally brief.
Never have I written a posting for one of the short films that precede the main Pixar feature film but this time, I felt compelled as it seemed to fully illustrate the crossroads Pixar Animation Studios has found itself, as far as I am concerned. In (ahem) short, "The Blue Umbrella," is a visual/emotional storytelling dynamo that is quite possibly the finest short feature film Pixar has released to date. It is easily the most visually forward looking short feature they have made and frankly, it is even more forward looking than Pixar's last four feature full length films. And speaking of Pixar's features, short and full length, "The Blue Umbrella" is their finest release since "Up" (2009) and it is one of the best films I have seen in 2013.
The story of the dialogue free "The Blue Umbrella" is beautifully simplistic as it is just about the titular blue umbrella's lovestruck pursuit of a red umbrella during a rainstorm in an urban setting. That's it. And of course, the success of the film is not because of what it is about but how it is about what it is about. Writer/Director Saschka Unseld has created a feature that is as romantic and wistful as it is poetic and downright magical. It is precisely the very type of feature that placed Pixar on the map of American animated films as it has found that inexplicable pixie dust to makes the mundane dreamlike wonderment.
The visual palate of "The Blue Umbrella" is unlike any Pixar feature we have seen thus far as it is a merging of what seems to be live action and animation creating a photo-realistic universe, which new techniques with colors, lighting, shadings and even movement, that is dazzling, beguiling, and euphoric in its presentation. Our emotional connection to that blue umbrella is instant and his tribulations in just making contact with that red umbrella are elegantly expressed and gorgeously augmented by Composer Jon Brion's floating score which features the vocals of Sarah Jaffe.
I have been heavily critical of Pixar in recent years due to the blandness and lack of imagination and fearless risk in their work. It seems that all of that fearless risk and unabashed imagination, heart and soul went into this small feature and I really believe that if Pixar is to have the future that it deserves to have, they truly need to tap back into this well and just...CREATE again. "The Blue Umbrella" is not the kind of film that will sell lunchboxes or is subject to create a new theme ride at Disney and why should it?
Pixar needs to make some serious decisions in what films it wants to make going forwards. Films that are guaranteed box office behemoths but creatively dispassionate or the ones where they just throw caution to the wind, open their minds and hearts and let those box office chips fall where they may?
You all know where I stand and I really believe that all members of the Pixar Senior creative team should get down on their knees to thank Saschka Unseld because with "The Blue Umbrella," he has re-discovered Pixar's soul.
And just in the nick of time.
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