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When opposites attract – Pixar’s love story “Elemental”
Fire girl Ember and water boy Wade in a scene from the film “Elemental”. photo
© Pixar/Disney/Pixar/dpa
Pixar’s new animated film is a love story. She also asks a question that many couples face: Do we even fit together?
That opposites attract is one of those phrases that people like to repeat in life. Pixar’s new animated film “Elemental” is also based on it. The contrast couldn’t be more obvious. Because in the film, a girl made of fire falls in love with a boy made of water. You quickly understand that this is not a very simple combination.
In “Elemental” director Peter Sohn shows a world whose inhabitants belong to different elements. There are beings made of water, earth, air and fire. They live together in a city, although that’s not entirely true – the fire beings have retreated to their own part of the city.
With their smoldering stature, they are eyed critically by others. This also applies to Embers. Her parents once left their old homeland and established themselves in the new town with a small shop. Upon entry, they were given new names because the old ones were said to be difficult to understand.
Also a story about migration
With scenes like these, “Elemental” is also a migration story. The film tells how it can happen to people who emigrate to another country and then find themselves between their old and their new homeland. And the film addresses the expectations that can weigh on future generations.
Ember is supposed to take over her parents’ shop if it weren’t for her constant outbursts of anger that get in her way when dealing with customers. After such an outburst of anger, she meets young Wade, who is made of water and loves to cry.
Wade works as an inspector tasked with finding a leak, but endangers the livelihood of Ember’s family when he accidentally lands in their home and diligently reports violations he finds in their patched-up home. So Ember and Wade aren’t friends at first until they are given a common mission and fall in love.
When does a couple exist as a couple?
The film poses a fundamental question that arises in human love relationships: If you find yourself so attractive precisely because of your differences – is that enough to survive as a couple? Or do you not decompose over time? With Ember and Wade, it’s unclear if they can even touch each other. Sure, they’re made of fire and water.
The film opens up another constellation. Because Ember, one realizes at some point, has the outbursts of anger not without reason. Wade once described it like this: Whenever he gets such outbursts, it wants to tell him something that he doesn’t yet want to admit. Ember also has to admit something inside. This truth has a lot to do with disappointing her own parents.
“Elemental” is an animated film whose colorful world is wonderful to immerse yourself in. The plot itself is ultimately unsurprising and a bit simply knitted, a bit cheesy at some moments, but nonetheless touching. The film touches on many social issues. And he continues what “Soul” and “Everything is upside down” already showed: that animated films can be psychologically clever. A bonus for watching parents.