This blog, if you couldn’t tell, is going to be about Ratatouille, the movie not the food. This movie is one of my favorite Disney movies. I love how the animation is done and how the colors work so well together.
Ratatouille is not just a cute kids movie made by Disney. It is a movie about a rat who has synesthesia(taste-to-color). Its visuals portray this due to Michel Gangne, the person who was put in charge of portraying Remy’s synesthesia in the film due to his own experience with synesthesia. He designed the colors and patterns Remy saw throughout the movie to depict what it is like to experience flavors through synesthesia. This made the film so much better. I honestly can’t imagine Ratatouille without the vivid colors, patterns, and just overall animation and cinematography.
Ratatouille is a movie about a rat who as we have established has synesthesia and is obsessed with food due to this. He thinks that rats should steal real food rather than trash if they are going to steal. He eventually is put over smelling food, trash, for rat poison. He does good at his job but one day he goes into the house beside where they live and causes the whole population of rats to flee. Remi gets separated and inevitably finds a restaurant he used to watch at the house near his and decides to go in and try to steal food but ends up befriending a man named Alfredo Linguini, who tries to become a garbage boy for the restaurant but ends up becoming a chef thanks to Remy.
Now that you are all caught up on the overall gist of the movie let’s talk about the cinematography, I guess you would call it, of this movie. Ratatouille is a masterpiece. Its animation is beautifully done, and its subject is well portrayed. It’s an artistic movie really. The movie consists of a very bright light color scheme throughout the majority. The movie does use darker color schemes when needed but it’s an overall pastel color scheme. The color scheme was the work of Harley Jessup (production designer) and Sharon Calahan (director of photography). They used more restrained colors in backgrounds throughout the movie to give more contrast with the bright deep colors used in the food. They used lighting as well. They used it to guide the films visual mood to evoke emotions and support the story throughout the movie. They use these aspects in such a way that the two blind together to make the movie. It flows together adding to the film in a very positive way.
The animation also adds to the film. It was animated by Pixar. The film uses a trad frame by frame animation method rather than motion capture. It took a lot of research and time to get every detail right. The animation is a 3d computer animation style. Its animation is slick, precise and well developed.
The movie was followed by a short film called “your friend the rat”. I personally have never seen this film. It is done in 2d animation and is a film where Remy and Emile (Remy’s older brother) tell the history of rats and argue the case of their species. It’s roughly 11 minutes long.
A theory some have made about the movie is that the old women who lives in the house at the beginning of the movie is the food critic Anton Ego’s mother. They support this with the decor showing in both his childhood home and her house being the same or similar.
My favorite character in this movie is obviously Remy, but Anton Ego is a close second and Alfredo is third followed by the great Colette Tatou. The character creation and development in this movie is amazing, and the plot is so well written. The movie was released in 2007. It was pretty amazing for the time. I suggest everyone watch Ratatouille it’s a great movie with so many good themes and lessons. It shaped my childhood, and it will always be one of my favorite movies. I could go on and on about this movie, but I think this is a good stopping point. Can’t wait for next week’s blog.
“Anyone can cook, but a great artist can come from anywhere” – Chef Gusteau
Now that my brother is in culinary school, I really need to rewatch ratatouille. I never realized that the scenes of Remy tasting food were more than just visual effects but were his synesthesia!! That’s so cool!! I wish more movies did cool effects like that to show how certain people see the world
I love this movie. I’m not kidding when I say it’s a childhood favorite of mine. I yearn to try that one dish with all the different vegetables. You know which one i mean.
Hey Robin!! I really enjoyed reading your post. This is such a great movie from childhood up to now I still watch it to this day it is such a funny movie. Disney has so many great movies!!
now that I know he has synesthesia the movie is way more exciting now i wonder if him seeing chef Gusteau ghost was him associating people with his favorite foods he tasted or smelled at moments?
and I heard of synesthesia before, but I wonder if a human minds associated people they have lost with foods like that the way remy does.
It never ocurred to me that Remy has Synesthesia, but that explains so much!! I want to rewatch the movie with this in mind, now. I also have Synesthesia, specifically ticker-tape synesthesia and assosciative synesthesia. I relate stuff to colors and memories (???) i suck at explaining it, but i’ve never realized that Remy had it too!!