Pete Docter
Inside Out

Those born in the '80s will certainly remember the famous cartoon that Mediaset, then Fininvest, offered us every day: “Siamo fatti così” (Once Upon a Time... Life). It was a French production that achieved considerable success in Europe and which (I know at least a dozen people) led many to take an interest in medicine and, as they grew up, become doctors or related professionals (biologists, when the first option didn’t work out). Technically it was a little thing, not much to it, but it undoubtedly introduced us young ones, or kids, to words like “artery”; “nervous system”; “muscle mass”. And there were little characters representing, from time to time, blood, brain conduits, or other similar things moving anthropomorphized from one part of the body to another. Now, I've always had a difficult relationship with science (I've always understood little or nothing about it) and “Siamo fatti così”, perhaps, confused me more than it taught me, but the idea behind it was interesting.

I don't know if Pete Docter, the director of “Inside Out” and one of the big names at Pixar, ever watched that TV series, but certainly the idea of making emotions human reminded me a bit of that show, namely making science something fun and familiar. Then, of course, “Siamo fatti così” had a primarily educational purpose, “Inside Out” doesn't, it's a full-fledged film, but I don't know, when it came out in 2015 my mind immediately went back to childhood spent trying to understand what the small circulation was.

“Inside Out” is, however, brilliant. For a start, it had the merit of lifting Pixar from years of failing projects (after “Toy Story 3” in 2010, they didn't hit the mark with a single one, among pitiful sequels, “Monsters University” and disheartening first-time features like “Brave”) and evident declines in box office returns. In the same year, a unique occurrence for Pixar, two films were released, this one and the disappointing “The Good Dinosaur”. “Inside Out” seeks to enter, literally, the brain of a teenager, Riley, a good student, a decent ice hockey champion, lovingly cared for by her parents, who suddenly finds herself having to move, leave her city, her friends, and from there the desire for rebellion, to go against her parents (considering them, not without reason, the culprits of such upheaval in her life) up to the plan to run away from home. And what does a girl like that, who could be any adolescent from anywhere in the world, feel in her brain? Thus her emotions manifest, with legs, arms, and faces: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust, each characterized by its own color. Joy commands the general office, while the others intervene at more or less opportune moments.

In Riley's head, memories, represented as pieces of a much larger puzzle, five macrocosms (Family, Friendship, Hockey, Honesty, and Goofball) which, at the moment Riley moves and plans her escape, collapse on themselves. While the long-term memories, cylindrical tubes, where the beautiful things of life are recorded, are touched by Sadness and then are lost.

Some have called “Inside Out” a manual of pop psychology, an attempt to trivialize something great and difficult to explain, as if trying to reduce Freud to the level of Mickey Mouse. I don't think it is so, the topic is certainly complex, and the film tends to simplify some things, but being, above all, a product intended for the general public, it cannot, and should not, be an educational work from a university textbook. And already as it is constructed, it appears effective: moreover, it is the only film in my memory, intended also for a pre-adolescent audience (who I don’t know how much will understand it) where it is made clear that Sadness, intended as a mood concept, is indispensable in the life of an adolescent and a living being in general (she will resolve much of the affairs at the end) and that, therefore, alongside Joy, the happiness of life, there must also be less noble but fundamental feelings in the growth path (obviously contained Sadness, not depression, which is a different thing).

Some ideas are truly remarkable: the segment of abstract thought is a masterstroke, as is the journey inside Imaginationland to discover Dream Productions (i.e., dream processing) until reaching the memory dump with its Forgetters. Above all, stands the figure of Bing Bong the clown, Riley's imaginary friend. Curious for two reasons: usually, Americans, from Spielberg to Stephen King, view clowns as horrific figures capable of ruining anyone's childhood (typical of American tradition), here instead he is even the friend, although imaginary, of the protagonist, and secondly, his sacrifice, that of never resurfacing in Riley's memory and ending up forever among the forgotten memories, is one of the most moving and, absolutely, highest moments ever seen in a cartoon, not just Disney. Worthy of applause and tears.

In the end credits, we discover that dogs reason and cats improvise, and that even adults have their emotions to share their existence with (more romantic and disillusioned those of women, more hot-tempered and crude those of men).

Also distributed in 3D (for once, with a logical construct), it won the Oscar for best animated film (well-deservedly) and, last year, a valid and equally interesting sequel, indicating that the brand, this time, seems to work even beyond the single debut film. After all, entering the mind of a teenage girl, then a grown girl, and finally, I believe, an adult, is like embarking on a journey into uncharted territories. Who knows where it’ll end up next time.