smoothrunner

"The Last Wish" is, without exaggeration, one of the best animated films I've seen in years. It's not because of the experimental animation - for me, such things are only important insofar as they contribute to the overall visual expression of the narrative - but because of the excellent plot and wonderful characters.

The anthropomorphic Gato (Puss), Perrito (Doggie), and Lobo (Wolf) form an original ensemble of characters, the dynamic between whom alone is enough to create a captivating narrative. And then there's Kitty, Goldilocks and the bears, Jack Horner, the cricket-conscience "voiced" by Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey, and a host of other supporting characters, each with their own story arcs and expressive personalities. But the main plot interaction occurs between the Cat, his Dog, and the Wolf. The Cat (Puss), a carefree and vain adventurer, is confronted for the first time with the fear of death. Along with the realization of his mortality, he comes to understand how senselessly he's wasted his life, displacing loved ones with his inflated ego, leaving no room for anyone else. This first results in flight and apathy, then in a gradual acceptance of his mortality and a willingness to fight the death, clinging against all odds to his "last" life, which has ceased to be empty, limiting his ego and making room for others - the Kitty and the Doggie. Doggie is an incorrigible optimist, not reduced, however, to a comic relief. In serious situations, Perrito behaves seriously and responsibly, and his life story itself doesn't exactly lend itself to mirth. What drives him and makes him special is his positive outlook on life, gratitude for what he has, and a desire to help others, especially his friend, whom he considers Puss to be. And finally, the Wolf is the charismatic main antagonist, creating conflict and driving the plot, a catalyst for change in the Cat's life and his rethinking of himself and his priorities.

Puss, Kitty, Goldilocks, and another character, Jack Horner, compete with each other for the wish-granting "star," each tracing their own path of personal growth on the magical map. Everyone, that is, except Jack Horner, who has cast aside his cricket-like conscience and "died inside." After all, dead people cannot grow.

I would especially like to mention Antonio Banderas's superb voice acting for Puss. And this isn't just because the cartoon Puss himself is modeled after Banderas's former role as Zorro. This is that exceptionally rare case where a star voice actor is not only not redundant, but simply irreplaceable. "The Last Wish" should only be watched with Banderas's voice acting -in English or Spanish. Kitty is voiced by Salma Hayek, echoing her and Antonio's role in Desperado, the film that made them popular in the US. Special mention should also be made of Wagner Moura, who voices the Wolf - his "Pablo Escobar" in wolf's clothing is truly terrifying.

In fact, the entire atmosphere of "The Last Wish" is completely unlike the saccharine, plastic, and empty Disney adaptations of fairy tales. Many Americans were quick to dismiss the film as "not for children," knowing only the poor example of Disney adaptations. Meanwhile, the exploration of serious themes and the protagonist's awareness of his own mortality are not at all alien to original European fairy tales, be they those from the collections of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, or those written by Hans Christian Andersen. It's precisely this kind of sincerity, seriousness, and candor that is so often lacking in modern films, not just animation but also cinema. They've ceased to communicate with the audience, to engage in dialogue with them, increasingly descending into empty entertainment with flashy special effects, relentless action, and empty jokes, or into intrusive moralizing, reducing the viewer to a soulless recipient of ideological propaganda. "The Last Wish" is different - it engages in dialogue with its audience, as true art should.

From a cinematic perspective, Villeneuve's adaptations should seem ideal - an emphasis on visual storytelling rather than verbal, stylish visuals, and Zimmer's high-quality score. Yet, watching his films leaves a persistent feeling of derivativeness, even a certain "plasticity," as if, seduced by a beautiful basket of fruit, you discover the absence of its smell and the taste of plastic. In adapting Dune, Villeneuve was undoubtedly inspired by Lawrence of Arabia (as was Herbert when writing the book) - from the sweeping landscape shots to the story of the self-proclaimed "messiah-liberator" who gradually loses his humanity. But despite all the technological advances available to Villeneuve in filmmaking, his Dune pales completely in comparison to David Lean's 1962 film. It's like a cheap Chinese knockoff compared to a true work of art. This applies to the overall aesthetic, the feel of the frame, the lighting, and even the special effects. As for the few lines of dialogue to which Villeneuve has reduced the verbal narrative compared to the book, even they seem superfluous - so inept, flat, and simply disgusting is their writing. The characters are also terrible and implausible, with a completely inappropriate emphasis on the progressive ideology fashionable in Hollywood. All that remains is a stylized, plastic image - a clumsy imitation of David Lean - and Zimmer's score. In my opinion, this isn't enough to consider Villeneuve's Dune a good film. David Lynch's version of Dune, which Lynch himself was ashamed of, is a far more original and interesting adaptation of Herbert's book than Villeneuve's flat, plastic copy.

It's incredibly challenging to write a review of this film - so many ideas and layers of cinematic storytelling are embedded within it, and so many dissertations and essays have been written about it, that the very notion of capturing it all in a single review feels excessively grandiose and overwhelming. Rear Window is such a comprehensive film in terms of cinematic language and richness of detail that any review will inevitably be incomplete and oversimplified.

Let's start with the stars, each of whom is an extraordinary personality, not just in terms of their craft. Brigadier General James Stewart, part of a trio of friends (and a love triangle) with Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullan, served as a combat pilot during World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. The peak of his pre-war career was thanks to his collaboration with Frank Capra, who also convinced a disillusioned Stewart to return to Hollywood after the war, casting him in the timeless It's a Wonderful Life. Stewart later starred in several Alfred Hitchcock films, including Rear Window, where he plays Jeff, a photojournalist confined to his apartment with a broken leg, sweltering in the heat and boredom. Princess Grace Patricia Kelly of Monaco, the epitome of elegance and an ideal of beauty, a natural blonde with a face as if carved from marble, was Hitchcock's favorite actress, earning an Oscar and two Golden Globes in her short film career. In Rear Window, Kelly plays Jeff's lover, Lisa, a model and socialite who wants to marry him. Thelma Ritter, a housewife who began acting at 42, earned six Oscar nominations, four of them consecutively. Ritter plays Jeff's nurse, Stella, a sharp-tongued, cynical woman who engages in brilliant, biting banter with Jeff. And, of course, the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, who turned Rear Window into a recursive exploration of voyeurism, blending reality and illusion while raising questions about how much the observed reality is merely a product of the observer's imagination.

The film begins with the raising of the curtain - the opening of the window shades in Jeff's apartment, a perspective that becomes both Jeff's and the viewer's throughout the film. The soundscape consists solely of conversations, street noises, and occasional music played by a neighboring composer on his piano or a record player. The viewer is fully immersed, becoming Jeff, spying on the neighbors alongside him while also observing Jeff himself. What does Jeff, confined to a wheelchair by his cast, see? Swelteringly bored, he watches his neighbors, each becoming a character in a silent film narrated by Jeff. The audience doesn't hear the neighbors - they see them through Jeff's eyes and form impressions based on his commentary. Stella accuses Jeff of voyeurism for watching his neighbors. But isn't the viewer doing the same, observing both the neighbors and Jeff? Moreover, how reliable is Jeff as a narrator of what he sees? Is everything on screen a fiction conjured by Jeff's imagination, or perhaps a dream? Just as the film itself is a fiction crafted by Hitchcock's imagination. And how accessible is reality to our perception before it becomes part of our imagination?

The thing is, Jeff isn't eager to abandon his bachelor habits and marry Lisa, despite her captivating beauty and charm. Yes, Lisa is as alluring as Miss Torso, a dancer whose lingerie-clad exercises Jeff spies on. With Lisa, one could indulge in the passions of the newlyweds behind another, heavily curtained window. It's tempting to dedicate a song like "Lisa," composed by the neighbor across the way, to her. But there's another side to marriage - another movie, or rather, another neighbor's apartment, tells a different story. There, Lars Thorwald, a traveling salesman once as free as Jeff, endures his wife's torment, as she lounges in bed all day in a negligee suspiciously similar to the one Lisa will soon wear while parading before Jeff. Yet abandoning Lisa feels inhumane - on the ground floor lives the Miss Lonelyhearts, imagining companionship and, in one scene, wearing a green dress the same shade as Lisa's. Central to these competing narratives is the story of Lars Thorwald and his wife. Jeff suspects Thorwald, fed up with her endless taunts, has murdered her - much like Jeff might wish to be rid of Lisa, whose talent, he claims, is creating trouble. Jeff's detective friend dismisses his suspicions, insisting it's just his imagination. Masterfully manipulating angles, Hitchcock shifts the camera's perspective to the detective's point of view, making him the primary narrator and disorienting the viewer.

The film's intrigue seems to hinge on whether Lars Thorwald killed his wife. But perhaps it's really about whether Jeff will marry Lisa? Everything happening across the courtyard strikingly mirrors what's happening in Jeff's apartment - or rather, in his mind. What he observes through the rear window, or in his imagination, becomes more real than what's in his room. Who in their right mind would watch Miss Torso or Miss Lonelyhearts when the stunning Grace Kelly is in the room? Yet Lisa, even in a negligee, must close all the curtains to become Jeff's focus. She jokingly says she'd only distract him from Miss Torso by moving across the courtyard and performing an hourly striptease. Indeed, Lisa truly captures Jeff's attention and becomes part of his reality only when she becomes part of his fantasy - leaving the apartment and entering Thorwald's, transforming into the daring heroine of the thriller Jeff and the audience are watching. Only then does she earn the ring on her finger, won through bravery and adventure.

Layer upon layer, the stories of the neighbors, Jeff, Lisa, and Hitchcock - watching the audience from the screen, breaking the fourth wall as the audience watches his imagination brought to life - interweave and overlap. Was there a murder? How much of Jeff's narrative about what's on screen reflects reality? Are we watching a murder investigation or Jeff's nightmare about marrying Lisa? How real is reality to us until it becomes part of our imagination? Studies from the early 1950s in the U. S. showed most Americans dreamed in black and white, but by the 1960s, most dreamed in color. This shift coincided with cinema transitioning from predominantly black-and-white to color. If dreams reflect our unconscious, how much does cinema's influence on dreams distort our unconscious, and how much does the latter reflect our direct experience rather than what we've seen on screens? Would Jeff have seen the real Lisa if he hadn't viewed her through his camera lens as the heroine of his thriller fantasy? C. S. Lewis wrote that imaginary beings have their insides on the outside - they are visible souls - and that a man can only be truly seen by placing him in the imagination and viewing him as a fairy-tale character.

Hitchcock's undeniable mastery lies in the fact that most viewers won't notice these narrative layers, or even Hitchcock himself, fixing a clock in the composer's apartment. Some will be gripped by his signature suspense, following Lisa's daring adventures, feeling helpless during the dark apartment confrontation, or jolted by Thorwald's piercing, fourth-wall-breaking stare. Others will be captivated by the detective intrigue, the sparkling dialogue between Jeff, Stella, and Lisa, the romantic storyline, or enchanted by Grace Kelly's aristocratic elegance, as if at a fashion show, debuting a stunning new outfit with each appearance. When the curtain of the shades falls, ending the audience's voyeurism, viewers will surely leave satisfied, each in their own way.