The most interesting thing about Wes Anderson’s adaptation (co-written with Noah Baumbach) of Roald Dahl’s ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ is the fact that Mr. Fox isn’t all that Fantastic. He is selfish, impulsive and destructive. His thrill-seeking –stealing food from three farmers in his area- causes his home to be destroyed and puts his entire community in mortal danger. He is a spectacularly un-heroic protagonist for much of the film. Even his wife says that she should never have married him. I am not familiar with the source material, but he would have gotten along famously with one Royal Tenenbaum.
The destruction wrought by Fox’s fox-like dispositions are not atoned for in the film, but then again a skewed and pained predicament is not something Anderson has ever felt the need to resolve- eccentricity seems to be its own reward in his universe. I am hard-pressed to explain why I found that eccentricity rewarding in ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ and ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ yet remained hopelessly removed from ‘Bottle Rocket’, ‘Rushmore’ and ‘The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou’. Perhaps it is because the eccentricity in the latter films is as much in its plot as in its character, whereas ‘Tenenbaums’ and ‘Darjeeling’ are more grounded in their plots.
‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ is not only grounded in Dahl’s story, but the fact that it is animated smoothes over elements that seemed forced in Anderson’s live-action work. His wide-screen, postcard images, as well as his penchant for multi-tiered shots gave his work a forced and stilted quality. With images that at times resembled doll-houses (or – less generously – as ant-colonies), some viewers concluded that his human characters functioned as dolls to be moved around. This argument is rather specious, as whatever faults the films have had; a lack of empathy on Anderson’s part has never been one of them. But in a stop-motion animated film, these arguments are no longer relevant. With everything created from scratch, nothing feels forced into a certain frame. This combination of relatable plot and this medium makes ‘Mr. Fox’ Anderson’s most accessible film. Indeed, after seeing this film, I almost wish Anderson would work exclusively in this medium- he seems to have been born to animation and stop-motion in particular. We are willing to accept far more in animation than in live-action. Few of Anderson’s quirks are distracting here, because of the medium. In a world created from the ground up, we surrender to a filmmaker’s vision far more willingly. Although it is at the moment thought of as a studio’s medium (Pixar vs. Dreamworks vs. Fox), ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ reveals animation’s power as a true director’s medium.
Many fans would disagree but to my mind, with ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’, Anderson has made his best film to date, in the ideal form. It is visually rich even by his own high standard, and is the one I enjoyed with the least misgivings. The frames pop with wonderful detail, from the exquisitely tailored costumes and the golden autumnal sheen of the exteriors, to the beautifully un-smooth movement of the characters, each one with its own rhythm and set of ticks. Like ‘Coraline’ showed a few months back, stop-motion is the most soulful form of animation, every movement with its tiny inconsistencies underlining the fact that artists are at work, imbuing literally every instant with thought and care (It is our good fortune that in 2009 two unique stop-motion animated film were released, and they are certainly the best animated films from last year.)
My favorite of the many visually intoxicating scenes in this film is one of Fox’s raids on the local farmers. The entire heist is seen from the farmer’s security hut, with the guard nodding off under an array of monitors. We see the entire heist on these monitors, with Fox entering the view of one monitor after the other, showing the entire heist, from entry to extraction. It is a simple idea, but the execution evokes the best of Chuck Jones. And it is not a huge, ostentatious image, but a man in a room with a bunch of monitors. Anderson impresses not through big flourishes, but with an inventive and ambitious intimacy.
The tone of the film is the same dead-pan earnestness as Anderson’ previous films, with the dialogue delivered in the same fashion, though ‘delivered’ may be too strong a word. There is no sense of voice actors trying to give a memorable line-reading, no preciousness about it- it is all conversational in tone. As opposed to each actor recording his/her dialogue separately in a studio, Anderson recorded all his actors in location similar to the ones in the film, giving the voices a warmer, more natural feel (This intimacy extends to the wonderful score by Alexandre Desplat. The score is for a small ensemble, with the same attention to detail the rest of the film has- more often than not, a scene will be scored with a flute, a banjo or a Jew’s harp, as opposed to 60 strings and brass).
As Fox, George Clooney gets to do some of the least self-conscious performing he’s ever done. His roguish demeanor turns out to be too clever by half – far from the foxiest; everyone’s got his number, especially his wife, voiced by Merryl Streep. Streep is so down to earth that one forgets who’s doing the voice- even when she tells him she shouldn’t have married him; it’s not a dramatic set piece. It is a blunt expression of exasperation, after which they continue living their lives. Anderson regular Jason Schwartzmen is fine as their son, doing the same bratty shtick he usually does. Bill Marry (another regular) is very amusing as Fox’s attorney, a badger. The only scenery chewing is done by the villain- Willem Defoe as a rat and the great Michael Gambon as Bean, the leader of the farmers and Fox’s nemesis. The other two farmers, Boggis and Bunce, have very little to say, only following Bean’s lead (“Boggis, Bunce and Bean, one fat, one short, one lean, these horrible crooks, so different in looks, are nonetheless equally mean” –Dahl’s words, put to catchy tune in the film by composer Desplat).
It is Gambon’s rage at Fox’s thefts that cause the entire community to run for their lives. It is an overreaction, but he does have a point- Fox is a successful journalist, retired from the chicken stealing business, and goes on these raids do to some mid-life identity crisis- he doesn’t feel foxy enough. That sticking point is the only element I wish Anderson had done more with. Fox is to blame, but that soon becomes secondary to escaping Bean’s clutches. As much as I appreciate Anderson’s acceptance of severe character flaws with an ‘Oh well, that’s life’, a film with a destructive hero is an angle I would have liked a little more exploration of, in addition to the joys of the traditional (and joyous) showdown between the animals and farmers.
Even unresolved, though, the issue makes for compelling food for thought to go with this ridiculously enjoyable film. It is a film that took several years to make, in the most time-consuming cinematic form. It is not out to win you over with massive scale, but with minute, hand-crafted detail. In this day and age, such modesty seems even more ambitious than the too-big-to-fail extravaganzas. ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ is an unassuming gem. Though inexplicably not distributed in Israeli cinemas, it is one of the best films of 2009, deserving every bit as much love as ‘Up’, while being far more inventive and singular.
SHLOMO PORATH
