Pumpkin Pie

Rated PG-13
Now Playing
AMC East, AMC 15, Polaris

Y. Demba's new animated film Pumpkin Pie asks us to relax from the troubles of daily life and sit back to enjoy our lives as they are. It is not a cohesive story from beginning to end; rather broken up into eight acts playing as snapshots of individual moments. The acts represent a small segment of life, beginning curiously with death and ending with old age. By the time you leave the theatre it will have woven itself together as a whole that will make you once again believe in the beauty of America, in all its conflicted manners. It is a modern Fantasia redesigned to generate conversation on the colour, music, and enjoyment of home.

Conceived, story boarded, and written during Demba's time serving in West Africa, the film can be viewed as a loving requiem to what America was when he left, and what will not be as time inevitably marches forward. It is a tribute to that one instant in time when all is immortalized in memory. The experience will dig deep into your own memory bringing out images that will bring a smile at times, a tear at others, and leave you grateful for how much life there is to live.

Set against detailed watercolour backgrounds, the clean sharp lines of the main characters seem to leap off the screen magically interacting with the audience. Like Fantasia of old there is no dialogue in the film; 'dialogue' is created through a tight synchronization of sound to image. The interesting choice of minimalist composer Philip Glass lead the way for a spectacular success providing an upbeat soundscape that reminds one more the jump and vibe of Dave Brubeck than Glass's own Koyaanisqatsi.

The most stunning thing about the film is the variety of artistic techniques employed while still maintaining a cohesive art direction. The eight vignettes that segment the film each have their own style playfully using the animation medium to disrupt our sense of scale, time, or colour. By the second act you are likely to be subdued into a meditative trance of contrast: guided by the direction of the film, but allowing enough space to bring memories from your own life to the forefront.

The films greatest moments carefully walk with us hand in hand down the path towards vivid memories. Of note are act three, 'Adolescence' and act nine 'Aging.' Act three's best moment occurs as Demba sets us in the delicate world of adolescence toying with our sense of scale. It this act a young girl is preparing for school and her gleaming supplies of markers, books, and clothes glow with her own excitement. Everything seems larger than life as she walks out her front door. As she approaches school the perspective begins to shift as the student enters a world of increasingly gargantuan goblins and goons melded with the images of teacher that scold, peers that taunt, and general confusion of childhood socializing. The slow change in scale naturally brings you back to the ups and downs of youth, so hopeful in the beginning and pure terror by the end.

In act nine, 'Aging,' Demba plays with the sense of time to deal with the topic of transitioning to life after child rearing. Here a man walks out his front door for the morning paper, the urban landscape that at first seems a tangible entity suddenly becomes a rush of life that is alien and distant. He paces through the city block trying to interact with the world around him cars, bicycles, crowds of people, even a crawling baby, but he is unable to physically interact with the world. The frantic pace engulfs him, and just when you think he is lost in the blur of life the camera centres on his face staring up at the sky. The audience is then transported to a wonderful sequence of flying high above the cityscape, now slowed back down to a normal pace. In the final cut, the camera pans around a full 360 degrees to reveal the man who is hang gliding dreamily through the world, with a grin of bliss covering his face.

The film is less successful in places where it too heavily relies on the clichés of American life. In act five, 'Love,' the film uses colour to represent the relationship of a blossoming fresh love. In this act two seemingly unrelated people board a train falling for each other by the end of the trip. As the train leaves the station and heads into mountain passes the colour palate is drab and dull, but as the journey wears on and the two pass each other, have their first conversations, and finally arrive at their destination hand in hand, individual colours are introduced one by one filling out the entire act with a radiance that is all the brighter due to the earlier contrast. While the other acts similarly use common experiences and notions to illustrate emotion, the clichés here feel overworked to the point where it is easier to relate them to other films, TV, or books you have read rather than your own experiences.

Still, Pumpkin Pie like an old friend, is a film that leaves you with a sense of joy and desire to sit chat for hours. It is a tribute to our current lives in America that asks us to forget the current troubles and take pleasure in the good that is here now. Rather than being escapist, it reminds us of the wonderful freedoms of a life defined by choice, movement, and contrasts. You will walk out of the theatre with your friends or family recalling all sorts of stories resurfaced because of the images and sounds encased in these eight acts. It will bring out emotions and experiences of life fully lived, and in the holiday season, what more could you want?

Rating: B+