In Wall-E (2008), the newest animated film from Pixar Studios, the Earth has been abandoned. The human race --fat, lazy, and dodging the mess they made of their planet-- is taking a luxury cruise through the galaxy while a small robot army of Waste Allocation Load Lifters makes it fit enough for re-colonization.
Wall-E is the last of his kind. He may seem a simple drone, a misfit worker, but isolation and a few hundred years has sparked a sense of identity. His program has expanded beyond his “directive” and includes the salvage and admiration of certain relics like sporks, cigarette lighters and vintage musical tapes. He has learned to value and question beyond himself. The genius of Pixar’s team lies in the way they allow the audience to read into and complete the hero without the aid of dialogue.
Body and Soul
His binocular eyes are the focus by which the audience connects most acutely. They have a ramshackle, found-object appeal and while limited by two settings-- up and down-- they seem integral to a more complicated emotive choreography. What begins with emphasis on functionality extends beyond into the human spirit of a non-human character. It is “cute” but also paradoxically evocative.
The nature of binoculars is the extension and focus of vision. Wall-E is frequently adjusting his lenses, “squinting” to see and respond to, perhaps even trigger his elusive memory. The Pixar team was conscious of the correlation between Wall-E’s simple design and the uncomplicated clarity he demonstrates in recognizing true beauty. In the reflective surface of the lenses, audiences recognize a bit of the awesome curiosity and familiar innocence of a child; A purer, unrefined wisdom.
For a rusted throwback-- something resembling nothing more than a old-school lunch box on wheels-- Wall-E exhibits remarkable agility. He is faced with the same task as the mimes of the Silent Era of film, actors such as Chaplin and Keaton. They were forced to communicate without words, with over-exaggerations of face and gait. Wall-E’s language is aural and kinetic. His “beeps“, designed by Ben Burtt, suggest words though inflection, and are coupled with rolling, revolving and gliding provided by his treaded wheels. He is a dancing percussionist who enacts feeling, shaking at danger and swooning at EVE, the object of his admiration.
Simple Themes, Simple Heroes
No time is wasted in throwing the wordless hero into the unknown. The sympathy generated for him is palpable. He appreciates things differently because he approaches them from outside their context, as an explorer. He tosses a diamond ring away because the box seems far more intriguing. A lighter transforms completely when it produces flame. He recognizes the uniqueness of the plant and the weight connected to the image of two hands clasped. None of his wonder is articulated, but it is understood. The audience knows the hero only as well as they can know themselves. Leaving this intangible gray area to the audience is respectful and brilliant. It involves them in the process.
What can be said about love that hasn’t already been said. The Pixar team keeps the relationship fresh by avoiding the swamp of one-liner melodrama prominent in other romantic comedies. Wall-E barely knows EVE before the achievement of her directive forces her into hibernation and sets the movie in motion, but he stays by her side and follows her into space. To help her fulfill her purpose, he throws himself under the machine to buy time. He exhibits this quiet, perfect instinct, evidence of humanity at its most vulnerable and most powerful.
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