LOS ANGELES – In a bold move that has stunned film enthusiasts, animation juggernaut Pixar announced its next major release will simply be one long take of the funeral of a family’s cherished kitten.
“We’re all really excited to show this project to the public,” said Chad Morris, lead production designer on the new film. “Our goal is to bring Pixar’s trademark emotional devastation and to ensure that the audience feels it not just for 2 hours, but for weeks afterwards.”
Storyboard images which have leaked since the announcement show that the camera will stay focused on the family, and particularly inconsolable daughter Jessica’s tortured face, for the entire length of the movie, cutting only to the mangled, deceased body of little Noodle.
Similar to Pixar’s previous hit Wall-E, dialogue will be sparse, consisting mostly of stammered eulogies, naïve questions about God, and sobbing. Heavy, deep sobbing. A full 45 minutes of the film will take place in a silent static shot of the burial mound after the family has left the makeshift gravesite.
Despite the mature subject matter, the film will continue Pixar’s trend in cutting-edge digital animation. “Our animators spent over 50 collective hours at various backyard wakes and hastily assembled pet memorial services to really capture the look of these emotionally crippling events,” reported director Brad Bird. “I think you’ll be really blown away by the verisimilitude of the ragged cigar box in which the kitten’s lifeless body is placed and the details on the soil as Martin (the father) prepares its final resting place.”
Early public reactions have been inconclusive. While some individuals stated they were looking forward to seeing which celebrity will voice the inconsolable little girl, the vast majority could not get past the description of the film’s premise without bursting out in tears and asking to be left alone for a while.
“This really isn’t much of a departure from the direction that Pixar has been heading for some time now,” Morris admitted. “In this case, we’re trying to teach children and adults alike an important lesson about loss. We just felt that the most effective way to do this was to force film-goers to watch the quiet, slow collapse of a family disposing of the corpse of their beloved pet.”
“Noodles’ Last Day” will be in theatres worldwide on December 25, 2016.
