I find it completely fascinating how different people approach cinema from different perspectives, and how being an artist yourself effects how you judge the quality of a film. last year my mom had spoken to one of the neighbors in our apartment block who was an illustrator, and he went on a very lively tangent about the knights of guinevere. when she told me this, I gave my prepackaged, apathetic "I've seen the pilot and wasn't super impressed, probably won't keep up with it but don't think it's bad etc etc" and she told me he was talking about the animation, and I was like oh, I was talking about the story!
and I conceded that it was fantastic that an independent studio was doing traditional animation, but it did get me started on this thought that I judge my enjoyment of a film on the quality of its story before anything else
which, yes, originality and humor and whimsy are a part of that, I guess, but also having a coherent and purposeful narrative is probably the most important defining factor of whether I think a movie is "good" or not
what I mean by this is that when I recently rewatched Everything Everywhere All At Once I was left with the strong impression that it was the best screenplay ever written, even though there weren't many gags and the (basic) setup of an alternate universe story has been done a thousand times before in a thousand different ways
but it wasn't the humor or creativity (though those are excellent, too, it's really one of the best films ever made) that I thought was so excellent, it's that every single detail, every line, every joke, every set piece, every movement, was deeply purposeful. everything had a setup and payoff, and all of these seemingly unrelated (and sometimes completely random) things were connected. in writing a paragraph in a story, you can do what's easiest, which is, "here I'll add dialogue, here is the setting, here is a joke, and repeat" and this sort of structure is still good and worth mastering because it gives you structure, consistency, and a voice, but with Everything Everywhere, the dialogue, the setting, and the joke were all the same thing, repeated in a different tone, a different body, a different scene, over and over, to become different (and therefore fresh and engaging) but connected things. everything in the film has meaning- nothing is done "just because"
which is SO GOOD for a film about alternative universes. but I digress
and ultimately this is very extreme example of an incredibly perfectly written film
a more tame example of what I mean (and probably an example that would get me crucified in animation communities) is of all the shorts, all the television, and all of the Irish trilogy films, that I actually think The Breadwinner is Cartoon Saloon's masterpiece. what really holds it back from being in my favorites is I can't get over the fact that no Afghans were involved in the production of the film. I'm not going to pat the writer on the back for doing the bare minimum (research and discussion with Afghan women) because it would be a better film if it was made by someone with a personal connection to the setting and history, but I guess it's more than any of the same 4 men who direct all Disney and Pixar films can say. and anyway that's a different discussion
my point is that The Breadwinner is like... the only Cartoon Saloon movie that feels like a coherent and purposeful narrative. Their Irish trilogy isn't bad, and I love Song of the Sea (which was my introduction to the studio), but their stories are fragmented, some elements undeveloped, and certain aspects somewhat inconclusive. I really did not like Wolfwalkers because I was so disappointed that they were unable to capture the pain and sacrifice and love between women that was in The Breadwinner in a narrative about the colonization of Ireland, which is an endlessly fascinating period to set an animated fantasy movie in. and, you know, their ballpark. and I was really looking forward to Wolfwalkers because of what it promised me (a story about friendship between girls set during a terrible era of colonization and oppression, with of course magic and fairies and such) and I just felt sort of deflated by how little thought was put into the story. just cliche after cliche. the magic almost seemed to interfere with the story rather than boost it, and the conflict was never taken as seriously by the narrative as it was presented to us by the characters, or maybe that I was expecting (another thing that's hard to define and I'd have to elaborate on if someone was curious). it felt more like a compilation of disjointed shorts that took place in the same universe than it did a complete and coherent narrative
I do feel similarly about their other Irish trilogy films, which is really sad because I was OBSESSED with Irish mythology and folklore in middle school, and they just never really captured the magic of it, for me. I had a hard time verbalizing why until I got to watch The Breadwinner, and I realized it's because, for the others, it felt like the visuals were developed long before the stories, whereas the opposite is true of The Breadwinner
and I still love the films (I have more issues with The Secret of Kells but again, for another post) and find them gorgeous, I understand why people think they're better than The Breadwinner and I'd never complain about those opinions, because again I like Cartoon Saloon! I just have writer's brain, I pick out the story before even thinking about the visuals, or the music, or the voice acting, or the humor, which is not true of all people because we all approach art differently
