I cry at the cinema, if the scene of the film is really touching. And it has happened to me a lot of times. It happened to me again yesterday when I went to the cinema to see Inside Out. But there is a problem.
I didn't cry for Inside Out, but I was genuinely moved by Lava, the short film that Pixar shot straight into our stomach while we were all waiting for the colorful little men in a girl's head. In a few minutes the story of that volcano overturns you completely heart, belly and head: the first tear fell to me out of sadness, the last one out of joy. And for me the evening was already worth the ticket price (and much more).
But Inside Out was still missing, and for the new pearl Pixar I haven't cried. Not at all, not even in the sadst moment of the film (see Bing Bong). And I wondered why. Why wasn't a film that speaks of emotions, that tries to give meaning to something that apparently doesn't seem to have one, a film that seems to be made specifically to leave strong feelings, crying?
Inside Out is a great movie, but it's artificial. That is the only answer I have been able to give myself, and I will obviously try to explain it. Inside Out's architecture is magnificent, and Pete Docter, who had already given us Up, knows how to play with emotions: the initial part of the film just mentioned is an example. This time, however, he flies behind the scenes trying to show us his vision of how emotions are created and managed. And the system he builds is really monstrous: every Riley experience becomes a memory linked to a particular emotion and stored, and then transmitted at the end of the day into long-term memory.
A person's personality is built on a total of essential memories, called Base, which in turn create islands, areas within the head that define the individual himself. Besides the headquarters and islands, with long-term memory, we also find Immagiland, the Abstract Thinking area (by far the best part of the film), the Dreams Cineproduction, the Subconscious. All these areas are crossed between themselves and connected to the QG through the train of thoughts. In the middle of everything we also find the abyss of memory, where thoughts, memories, are forgotten forever. This architecture is an excellent vision, a credible example of how our head works for Docter.
For Riley, the transfer from Minnesota to San Francisco is an identity crisis, an emotional collapse that we all faced as kids (and we continue to face today), which leads her to lose all her certainties, her identity, in order to build a stronger, more mature, more self-aware. The abandonment of childhood and the beginning of growth. What happens outside the head and what happens inside are two moments that continue to influence each other: the continuous motion of action-reaction fascinates, between the behavior of the girl and what happens in her head. And at some point it is also difficult to understand which of the two fronts is influencing the other one more.
There is, however, a moment in the film where this balance breaks down completely, where this metaphor of human life collapses, leaving room for the scenic find. And it happens unfortunately at the most important moment of the film: Riley is now fleeing from everything, apathetic and alone, and even the last island of personality, that of the family, is collapsing. Her world is in ruins and Joy, after having returned to the surface thanks to Bing Bong's sacrifice and understanding the sense of sadness, must arrive with her at the QG before the damage becomes irreparable.
From here on the orderly logic of the film collapses: Joy finds an expedient through Immagilandia (the ideal wedding ladder) to take advantage of an elastic carpet on the island of the family in full collapse and launch rocket on the Headquarters after catching the flight sadness. Together they enter into the QG and Joy leaves it to Sadness to solve things. The link between "Inside" and "Out" ceases to exist because of the scenic expedient. Joy's desperate acrobatic move, though I have tried to find it, has no metaphorical intent, but purely scenographic.
The film fails to show us the peak of Riley's collapse, to explain what happens between the destruction and reconstruction of his identity, turning off the magic and leaving us "only" a great film.
That is why I have not, perhaps, cried.
Or maybe I had the console in tilt last night, who knows.
