9 Movie Review
I have not seen any Tim Burton movie. Neither have I read anything about him or his movies. I know 9 is not made by Tim Burton, but by Shane Acker, but I find everyone around me talking about the film, the expectations, the outcome and most importantly: Tim Burton.
I did not carry any expectations. I’ve always been a sucker for real emotions, and rarely have I pushed mself to watch an animated venture and come out satisfied without not having to look at the watch every two minutes.
But sometimes a checked rag stick figure with a zip on his stomach, eyes drawn as round as if with a compass, and artificial silky blue eyes can emote and evoke much more than a human being. I have always always dreaded fantasy and everything related to that genre, be it books or films, I’ve always stayed away.
It’s the salty transparency in the tears that move you, it’s actual death that scares you away, or an actual tyrant that haunts you, but very occasionaly does it happen, that an animated film so visually stunning can do that to you, and change your stagnant perception for once.
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Dark myriad hues set amidst the typical dystopian society of the world in ruins and having to come to an end. A scientist who creates a flawed genius and lands himself into a black pool of problems and consequences, now has 9 creatures who are capable of saving the world with their heroic acts.
The characters and it’s layers is what dissappoints me. It’s something that any newbie can write. An animated film can be as visually consuming, but if it lacks the right ingredential characters, it leaves a bad after taste. Not bad, but rather sour. The characterisation is certainly not fresh and unique, in the sense, it’s more of ‘seen that’. For example,
1. an illiterate fat creature with a silly smile,
2. an arrogant conceited balloon of a leader who refuses to listen to others,
3. a good old man who dies for the good,
4. a newbie who is out to act as the saviour for the world,
5. and two rather comical twins, nothing less than what we’ve seen a million times.
I forgive that too. Bad characters lie everywhere. It’s the execution that amazes you. Some of the scenes were simply hair raising and the probably the best cinematic experience I’ve had in a theatre, almost proving to an extent, that there could be a time when real actors could go extint, and VFX animation would rule. That day is not too far, though I dread a day full of animation.
The post apocalyptic venture is probably the most visually powerful film in terms of animation, graphics and special effects. It would be sheer unjustice to say that the film is all style minus substance.
Few of the scenes are jaw dropping in terms of editing, the mis en scene, the visual liquidity, the dialogues, and the emotional timing, but what lacks is consistency. It puts you to the edge of the seat, and then after some time, you get back to rest your chin and fold your legs.
My particular favourite scene would be where the older and much backward 2 meets the new improved 9 meet. 2 is elated to see 9 having so many new features and there is a shattering silence as 9 cannot respond.
“ You cannot speak?” says 2. No 9 can speak, you’ll find out, don’t worry. No spoilers here.
It is predictable, no doubt. The storyline, the plot, the violence, the characters, the killer robots responsible for destructing the world. The problem is that images of a world in ruins, a few brave and cowardly saviours fighting those huge machines with long arms and eyes as bright as the fireflies. Nothing extraordinary. The writing is certainly abymysal at times, almost going on the same hard beaten track many a times. An area that needs to be looked into is that showing your rather brilliant VFX skills, you don’t always need enormously sized machines, and the post apocalypse period, and the world ending, and loud violence.
Something fresh would be amazing to taste too.
The editing is something that’s arresting and goes beautifully well with the film, having no knowledge about editing, I’m saying this because any badly editing animated film looks horrible. This does the opposite reaction.
I always hate it when we harp about expectations from a filmmaker, from any writer or anything, be it anything. Something I truly hate is when we compare various things in a filmmaker’s repertoire to each other, and nitpick rather useless things. But as ironic as it may be, 9 has risen my expectations. You may ask why.
As I repeat, I was totally unaware of any previous works of any of the people related to the film, I didn’t even see the much acclaimed short, but what I can say is that after watching 9, hope has ignited. Hope for the new wave of animation, the wave where animation films can evoke with the power of a neo realist film, the wave where many talented filmmakers like Shane Acker would tempt into breaking new grounds and territories and attempt rather stunning cinema with animation at it’s helm, and more meaningful cinema to creep in.
If you feel animation and serious realist cinema do not go hand in hand, you are certainly mistaken, try watching Japanese Anime movies based during the post world war and the poverty period, with not so impressive animation, it keeps you hooked and heartbroken till the last second of the closing reels.
In conclusion, 9 is pure cinematic brilliance with dashes of some deep substance, some inconsistency, some mediocre writing, and lots and lots of hope for more animated movies to come and impact us.
P.S – I would like to give my heartiest of thanks to Oz and PVR Pictures for letting me watch 9 before it’s release.
Tags: 9, animation, jehan handa, Movie Review, Shane Acker, tim burton, visually stunning
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Nine out of nine for your review, Jehan. And an extra mark for making it to the screening venue!
“It’s the salty transparency in the tears that move you, it’s actual death that scares you away, or an actual tyrant that haunts you,”
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Bullseye bro J. Have’t seen the film, so i will save my comments for then, if at all I watch it in the first place, as, like you, I’ve always been a sucker for real emotions, and rarely have I pushed mself to watch an animated venture.
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your writing is getting better by day. Keep the flag flying!
Thank you so much Arun sir and Magik!
Let the Burton fans come in and give their views, I’m scared about that, haha
Good one bachu! Line mein lagja. There’s hope yet for you.
I’m confused whether you’re being nice or sarcastic
I ll vouch that is the better of his kindred humility.
dude… in the words of rice plate reddy… A-1 Tip Top.. abhi aur kya bolu
Forget Shane Acker and go see Batman or its even better sequel. Or see Sleepy Hollow if you don’t like the Gotham City superhero. Don’t like superheroes or violence? Go see Edward ScissorHands. Don’t like protagonists with inexplicably fantastic deformities? Go watch Corpse Bride.
Don’t like cartoons or anything thats gothie? Go watch Big Fish. Don’t like fairy tales at all? Go watch Ed Wood. Do anything but don’t say you don’t know who Tim Burton is.