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Finding Nemo

Movie Finding Nemo Director Andrew Stanton

By Subhash K Jha

It takes a great deal of maturity to rediscover the child within the cinematic experience. Innocence isn�t an easy virtue to uphold on screen. The end-product is either goofy or over-cute. Finding Nemo is neither. It�s something entirely different. It�s magical mystical and finally so seductive, we�re sucked into a world that is as deep as the oceans in which our protagonist Marlin (speaking in the voice of comic actor Albert Brooks) sets out to search for his son Nemo(Alexander Gould). Giving him company is a charming absent minded blue fish Dory (Ellen Degeneres). As Marlin and Dory make their way through a series of captivatingly captured sea adventures, we the audience are taken through a picaresque journey which is as enriching as it�s artless. The fish that swarm this Walt Disney marvel of aqueous infinity are all animation creations. And yet they convey some vital home truths of life�s journey from darkness to light with a velocity that challenges their wispy motivations. More than an adventure story Finding Nemo is a morality tale that takes wings or shall we say, takes fins? Plumbing the depths of the ocean director Andrew Stanton plucks precious pearls of wisdom from the experiences that Marlin, Dory and little Nemo undergo. Parts of the film are so moving you find yourself feeling utterly silly for that rising lump in your throat. Dammit, these aren�t real characters. They�re just computer generated talking-fish, for chrissake! Every character comes alive not so much through the graphics as the voices. Our Indian actors who tend to dub their lines as though they�re rehearsing for a radio play should carefully study the nuanced wickedly funny and eloquent voices which constitute 75 percent of the performances here. Specially vivid is the voice of Ellen Degeneres who has herself a whale of time, in more ways than one. Check out those funny noises she makes while trying to indulge in some whale-talk with a whale who could lead her and Marlon to the missing child. Little Nemo is held captive in a fish tank filled with assorted friendly fish who quickly adopt little Nemo and devise an ingenius way to his escape. The Hindi version, I�m sorry to say, cannot convey even an iota of the sensational aural astutenes of the original. See the original English-language version , and let little Nemo and his father provide you with some truly invaluable lessons on life. On the way there are some chuckles and pretty hard knocks on the knuckles. This little masterpiece has so much to say about the quality of contemporary life, the rules and norms of parental guidance and man�s relationship with Nature that we wonder why we have to look at this wondrous work as an animation film. Finding Nemo is a lot more than an entertainer, and a lot less than a morality play. It�s a fable with fins . And therein lies the beauty of the presentation. It�s so real because of the realm of virtual reality that�s created within the marine mood. The screenplay isn�t a pretext to simply uphold the amazing animation. The story propels the characters to heights that have so far been fugitive even to human characters in mainstream Hindi cinema. When will our cinema grow up enough to make a complete children�s film whose innocence becomes its greatest claim to profundity?