Just got back from seeing Cars with Arthur. Very good. Not quite as good as the Toy Stories, drags a bit in a couple of places, but still better than most of the films you'll see this year.
But the most affecting bit for me was the way they captured some of the grammar and language of American roads. No-one things of roads having grammar but they do, it's one of the things you notice if you drive a lot in two languages. Signs appear in different places, merging has a different quality, juntions have different accents and sweeps. And, when you're a passenger there's a beautiful rhythm to the interstates that this film captures in a lovely sequence early on, when Lightning's being driven across country on the back of a big Mack truck. You see the ways your car's shadow stretches, receedes and then looms up at you as the landscape changes, you see the whipping rhythm of trees giving way to crops and back to trees. You see the mountains that seem to be just ahead of you, for hours, the long lines stretching to infinity. It's really quite lovely and evocative. It made me nostalgic for the drives Anne and I used to do, up and down the US listening to NPR and baseball commentary.
Michel Gondry played with some of the same feeling in this video.
Anyway, go and see Cars, it's good.
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