KEY POINTS:
Rats are not the most popular creatures. The fact that in London you are never further than 3m from a rat or that in Paris there are probably more rats than humans is not a pleasant thought. Still, that didn't deter the geeks at Pixar Animation Studios from
making a movie about one.
In their latest film, Ratatouille, Remy with his gleaming fur is a classy country rat with a dream of becoming a chef in a five-star Parisian restaurant.
After lucking upon the restaurant run by his deceased idol, Auguste Gusteau, whose motto is "anyone can cook", he gets to do just that.
Gusteau's kitchen was inspired by an amalgam of Parisian restaurants including Guy Savoy, Taillevent, La Tour d'Argent and Le Train Bleu.
Understandably, the Pixar folk were a little nervous when they met the world's press in the French capital. They flew journalists to Paris to get them in the mood, and set up a kitchen with long tables stacked with fake fruit and vegetables, which looked as real as the food in the film.
Their latest challenge has been to make computer-generated haute cuisine look as scrumptious as possible.
The problem was, during their research in the world's classiest kitchens, the chefs went to great pains to prepare delicious meals and then the Pixar boys had to eat them.
"In the end we didn't have a meal that was under four-and-a-half hours, we didn't have a meal that was under 17 courses and we ate as many as 29 courses," recalls the film's producer, Brad Lewis. "I know, you're thinking, `Oh poor you!' but man, it makes you full - beyond Thanksgiving full. It actually becomes painful."
At least one assumes they didn't have to pay? "Oh yes we did. For dinner there's quite a price range. The cheapest is Euros180 [$318] per person, then there's the wine. It's all research," he says.
One imagines that for Pixar, which is now a part of the Walt Disney Company, money is not in short supply. Its earlier, groundbreaking computer-generated films have been box office bonanzas. Even if the numbers are declining, in part because of the increased competition, they are still ahead of the field when it comes to creativity and critical support.
Finding Nemo's worldwide tally was US$864 million, The Incredibles US$631 million, while their least satisfying movie, Cars, was US$462 million.
Ratatouille, despite its French name and more subtle, sophisticated, adult-friendly storyline, now looks set to equal the latter box office figure. It's being gobbled up in Pixar-loving France, where Finding Nemo out-performed The Lord of The Rings at the box office.
"It's been a long time since any film celebrated, with so much kitschy energy, France: its cuisine, its finest features, and Paris, capital of taste," wrote a critic from French weekly magazine, Telerama.
What sets Pixar films apart from other animation studios is the emphasis on story and on creating new animation, rather than paying huge sums for voice talent.
Hollywood stars Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz received an astounding US$10 million each for Shrek 2, for example, while in Ratatouille the American voices of lesser-knowns were used, including American comic Patton Oswalt as Remy.
A sense of humour and skewed sensibility comes in handy, too - director Brad Bird cut his teeth on The Simpsons and came to Ratatouille directly after finishing The Incredibles.
Ratatouille's slapstick cooking scene, where Remy sits under the hat of outcast garbage boy and talentless chef Linguine, directing the manic cooking by pulling his hair, is an animated tour de force. Ultimately Ratatouille is Pixar's riff on classical physical comedy.
"Animators love to communicate things through pantomime and we all love Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy," says John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.
"Chuck Jones was one of my mentors and he always said that with great animation you should be able to turn the sound off and still know what's going on.
"I think Brad brought so much to this film. The animation in that kitchen scene with the characters moving around is very complex."
The creative decisions were mostly left to Bird, who had taken over from Jan Pinkava, creator of the film's characters, premise and some of the design. Bird re-worked it after Pinkava, an Oscar winner for his 1998 Pixar short, Geri's Game, departed from the company, causing speculation that all was not well with the production.
"For us the risk of schedule and release date is such that we wanted to go to somebody who we absolutely knew had enough experience and could reliably deliver a first-draft script that was production-worthy. And that was Brad Bird," says Lewis.
One has the impression that for their first film since the Disney buyout, Pixar weren't leaving anything to chance and, with his version of Ratatouille, Bird has not let the side down.
As usual the aim was to make a family-friendly movie, though one that even childless adults would go to.
It's not as if they deliberately manufacture their films for any audience, says Lasseter.
"We're making movies we like to watch, we trust our instincts," says the man, who also owns a vineyard and chose the wine in the film.
Certainly adult interest in fine cuisine helps bring in the grown-ups and the inclusion of Peter O'Toole as the unmistakable voice of the mean and nasty food critic Anton Ego was inspired. "The bad guy naturally had to be British," quips Bird.
In the story Ego's reviews of the restaurant determine the rating it might have. Watching the film, it's hard not to recall Bernard Loiseau, France's top chef who killed himself when his GaultMillau rating was lowered.
"That was in the story before Loiseau died," explains Lewis. "In fact on one of the earlier trips to Paris Jan met him and talked with him about what it's like to own a restaurant. He spoke about the pressure and this was around seven months before he died. So the idea of Gusteau dying is disconnected from that - he didn't commit suicide in the movie."
Bird's and Lasseter's offspring - both men have all boys - have been arbiters of taste for their fathers' Pixar films, as well as for Bird's underrated debut feature, The Iron Giant.
"I was a little concerned because my first two films had been about giant robots, military battles, superheroes and things blowing up and this was a movie about cooking and little rats and fine food," says Bird. "I was worried they were going to be a little bored by that, but they responded to it well."
So do rats get a bad rap in general? `
"Sure, they're just trying to get along in life. One of the ideas in the movie is that they can be nasty little things if they're desperate and have to scrounge for everything, just like people. They're not great if they feel cornered - I wouldn't want to corner a rat.
"But if you get a lab rat that's well fed, they're pretty cool and can hang around you, crawl on you, sniff the air. They're pretty sweet."
LOWDOWN
What: Ratatouille, Pixar's latest animated adventure
Who: Featuring the voices of Janeane Garofalo, Ian Holm, Peter O'Toole, Brian Dennehy among others
Directed by: Brad Bird
