Ernest & Celestine (2012)
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Ernest & Celestine Movie Review
Ernest & Celestine is a 2012 French animated family film directed by Stephane Aubier. It’s an endlessly charming, beautiful movie that has the ability to endear everybody.
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“Bears up above and mice down below“
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The story follows the unlikely friendship between a big bear and a small mouse. There is a clear message for the children here, which is not to hold prejudices against different people. This particular friendship can be a metaphor for a relationship of different classes, same gender and different races, but that last one is the most likely candidate as these are two entirely different species after all. It was great how the movie handled this message in a delicate instead of on-the-nose manner.
The movie has that enchanting storybook quality to it and being framed as a fairy tale definitely made it feel as such. However, the movie went beyond the simple plot premise and actually introduced a whole world for both the bears and the mice with their entire towns being gorgeously rendered and wonderfully imagined. This was done for better and for worse. On the one hand, the movie thus lost some of its charm and simplicity. But on the other hand, this decision made the flick more modern and intricate, thus elevating it in terms of world building.
And that world building is truly incredible. The mice living below the bears, the mice stealing the teeth from the bears, the protagonist being poor and discarded from society, both being misunderstood artists… All of these plot beats and ideas simply worked, and it was such a delight following its narrative threads unravel in the most magical of ways.
Probably the movie could have used more character development for all the other personalities besides the main two, but this decision still led to greater characterization of the titular duo, and for that I was quite thankful. This is the movie about them after all. So, who are Ernest and Celestine?
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Ernest is this very gruff, annoyed and disgruntled bear who is always hungry and frustrated that he can’t find anything to eat. This hunger of his was played for laughs so effectively, but the movie also doesn’t shy away from portraying the issue at hand – poverty. That was wonderfully done.
Celestine herself is this very curious mouse who has the tendency to speak the truth to everybody, no matter the consequences. She is very persuasive with her words, thus easily surviving from the bear eating her. The two form such a powerful friendship that has to be one of the best in animation history. Not only is it rooted on their differences and literally fleeing from their respective societies, but it’s also based on mutual respect and shared artistry. He is a musician and she is an artist, and simply witnessing them build each other up was profound.
Ernest & Celestine has such an incredible animation style to it. It has that storybook feel to it with very simple lines being drawn and sometimes the exteriors either being muted or intricately detailed depending on the frame. Every single interior had a lot of detail going on in it, which was just astonishing to witness. Although the pacing and the action scenes could become a bit overwhelming in the third act, most of the film was paced so well with the smaller moments being extended more, so that we get to know and feel for the characters. The score is also pleasantly French and highly charming.
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