Wall-e: “Eve?”

This summer is going to be fully romantic. Last monday I had one more proof of that.

I think Ratatouille is a masterpiece (I’m not only talking about animation films). I got absolutely enchanted by the script, with unforgettable paragraphs like the article written by the critic, at the end, by the visual luxury and by the expressions of the characters, especially the animals.

And however, if a film is to be valued on account of the amount of tears you have shed while watching it, Wall-e would be the winner.

In Ratatouille I could not help crying in a unique and fully-sensitive moment that takes place in the restaurant. In Wall-e I was all the time either holding my breath not to start crying or just not being able to hold it.

When this mp3 and p2p software began to be fashionable, I gathered some songs that had some kind of charm for me, and looked for one with special interest: It only takes a moment from Hello, Dolly! sung by Michael Crawford. As naive as you may think it is, I have always liked this song. When I heard it in the film the history completely got me.

“It only takes a moment
For your eyes to meet and then
Your heart knows in a moment
You will never be alone again.”

Wall-e is a space story, but I think it’s just the frame for a sweet and none a bit cloying tale about endless love and tenderness.

The small robot is such an innocent and cheerful character but also of such fragile appearance that I spent the film praying for him not to get hurt, full of that discomfort you get when contemplating defenselessness. There is no dialog at all during the first minutes, but who cares? You can just watch and be amazed at how the creators have been able to transmit so much using characters that even lack mouth or human-like eyes.

“I held her for an instant
But my arms felt sure and strong…”

By the way, I congratulate the authors and I am happy for them because it’s absolutely clear that in some way, sometime, they have loved. Otherwise they couldn’t have been able to put on the screen small exquisite details that can go dangerously unnoticed during the action but are treasures of delicacy. Like getting a surprise ready for the one you love in a joyful mood, or seeing a magnificent sky all of a sudden and look for your love to share it with you as a first reaction.

Wall-e is lonely. He is restless, curious and cheerful. But every time he watches the happiness of sharing on the screen of an old television he feels he has a painful need of being loved. And however, when love comes he doesn’t claim nor ask for anything; he loves without any plan and also without excuses. He forgets about himself and looks for happiness in that of her girl’s. Through difficulties and confusion his love grows even deeper, always faithful to whom has made him feel the sweetest emotions of all after having lived surrounded by garbage and dirt for so long.

It is not by chance that the robots’ feelings are more human than those of the men themselves; the film also speaks about a scarcely desirable future, it gives us a “knock” on our stubborn, predatory and lazy head so that we can understand we must take care of us, our inside and the Earth.

There are highly poetic scenes you’d better discover for yourselves. There’s nothing to say about the virtuosity of the drawing and the animation, except that it is spectacular.

Cast aside the happenings with which the adult life hardens our hearts, go and see the film; when you hear Wall-e’s tiny voice saying “Eve!” in a thousand different ways, with a thousand nuances of tenderness, you will realize that the scripts that really move you can be sometimes written with a single word.

“It only takes a moment
To be loved a whole life long.”

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