Day 102: Ernest & Célestine (June, 19)

I usually watch animations with my niece and nephews, but sometimes I reach one by my own. At night, I was feeling sick, still with a cold or affected for a new one, I'm not sure... so I chose what looked like a sweet story to acompany me. 

And again I got it right. Ernest et Célestine is based on the books by Belgian author and ilustrator Gabrielle Vincent - an alias for Monique Martin, deceased in 2000. Wikipedia told me that, and I was very sad to hear about it. Her colors are endearing, her scenes so beautifull. I'm guessing here, but I think the movie tryed to reproduce her water color's painting

The water colored images were the true storytellers here for me. The tale of two socially opposed outcasts became real to me through those paintings. There's many ways to feel unfit to the ambient around us, and usually kids deals with it on  daily basis. Adults too, and that's Ernest, a bear that lives on the "good" ground, the above world, but is not able to adjust himself. Celestine is on the despised underground, and her inadequacy in an already outcast society is exposed by her thoughts about the world - pictured on her drawings, considered a nuisance by the adults. 

The two together seem an impossible matching, but of course they are not. And their friendship is only not a product of fairy tales, as both their communities could think. it is real, beautiful and moving - and, of course, daring.  

Any society has rules to keep people on track. While enabling the coexistence between peers, it also can create huge gaps that separate who is considered inadequate. And it is mainly through inadequacy that we can change the rules that persist still without any other reason than to create an abysm between people - a serviceable abysm to the economical and political current matters. For me, Ernest et Celestine is specially about that, and the outstanding creative power of inadequacy. 

Ernest et Celestine. Directed by Stéphane Albier et al. With: Lambert
Wilson, Pauline Brunner (Forest Withaker and Mackenzie Foy in the dubbed US
version). Writers: Daniel Pennac form the books by Gabrielle Vincent. France/
Belgium/Luxemboug, 2012, 88 min. Dolby Digital, Color - animated (Netflix).

PS: I wrote this post in front of Silver Linings Playbook, the film on day eight-nine (JUne, 6). I can't resist to it, and seeing it for the millionth time, I remember something that I forgot to talk about before. There's a sentence that I love in this film. Pat, meeting his estranged brother after a long time, tells him: "I got nothing but love for you, brother", ending an awkward moment between both. This line summarizes so many things in there, that I was amazed by it. it got me sadder after reading the book, by which this character is not an inoffensive douche, but a stand out guy, very supportive of his younger brother.