The new production from Pixar studios is to be discovered in cinemas this Wednesday, June 21, 2023. Peter Sohn, director of Elementary, spoke about the creation of this personal animated film. Interview.
After toys, cars, insects, monsters or even fish, Pixar is venturing into the elements. Elementary is the latest from the studio with a bouncing lamp, and will be released in French cinemas this Wednesday, June 21, 2023. Spectators will be able to discover the romance between Flam, representative of fire, and Flack, being of water. Beyond this love story between two characters that everything opposes, the new Pixar film offers a touching and sincere metaphor on immigration and the weight that parents pass on to their children.
On the occasion of the release ofElementary, we met its director, Peter Sohn, to whom we owe in particular Arlo’s World. The filmmaker, who was inspired by his own story to write his latest film, talks about the difficulties represented by this very personal film and its particularity within the large family of pixar movies. Our interview below.
Where did you get the inspiration and the story ofElementary ?
Peter Sohn (director) : She came to me seven years ago. I went back to New York, where I come from, to give a talk about art and Pixar. I invited my parents to this event, we were all dressed in our best costumes. Then, I went on stage, I saw them and I cried because I saw how old they were and how hard they had worked to get there. I was very touched by this. I put aside the speech I had prepared and simply said, “Mom, Dad, thank you so much for all the hard work and sacrifices you have made to give my brother and me a life. here.” I was very moved. I don’t know if you’ve done it in your life, but physically showing gratitude had a real impact on me. I went back to Pixar, I told this story, and they were like, “Peter, this is the next movie you have to do.” And that’s how it all started.
What’s it like to weave such a personal and complex story in a fantasy world?
I think that was very naive of me. I knew, I think, that developing such a film could become complicated when it is inspired by a personal story. Because when it’s too personal, it’s very difficult to change it for the good of the film, it’s very difficult to say, “no, no, that’s not how it should be”.
On the other hand, I never wanted to do an autobiography. All of these elements inspired by my personal life were really small seeds that I hope resonated with the team so that we could create a new story, while remaining objective. Now I haven’t been 100% successful in doing this. My parents both died during the making of this film, and there were some very difficult times to go through. Because my parents were really the heart of this film.
And why did you choose the four elements to transpose this story and serve the metaphor of immigration?
When I was a child, in science class, I always drew characters inside the boxes of the periodic table of elements. It looked like an apartment building, like the ones I grew up in, and I laughed at them. Then when Pixar asked me to start this new movie, I took in some of my parents’ immigrant story and their time in New York, and just replaced it with elements. But I couldn’t use all the elements of the periodic table, it was too complicated, so I reduced it to the classical elements to represent this metaphor in a more visual and clear way.
“My father died suddenly, and the story took a dark turn.”
You mentioned the death of your parents during the production, all my condolences. Did that have an impact on the film or on the story?
Yes, it really had an impact. When I started writing the screenplay, I wanted to make a film that was hopeful, fun, with characters that intersect, mix, don’t mix, and build their lives in a new place. Then, within the first two years, my father passed away suddenly, and the story took a dark turn. The film was no longer hopeful, it became a story of war between a town and this family. There was a lot of anger and hatred.
After finishing this version, I showed it to a small group of people in the studio. They were all surprised by how dark it was and asked me if that was what I had originally planned to do, and I replied, “No, no, no, no. I wanted to do something optimistic.” Then we built a story centered around love and connection. Then my mother passed away towards the end of production, and that had another effect on me as well.
Even though Pixar films already featured romantic relationships, Elementary is the first is a true romantic comedy. Why did you seek to summon this genre in particular?
When I started drawing the characters, I made a fire character next to a water character, and I immediately felt a tension, there was a conflict just by drawing them. It reminded me of another personal story: I married someone who wasn’t Korean, and my dying grandmother’s last words were, “Marry a Korean girl!” I had enormous pressure since my childhood. I began to transpose this context into the relationship between fire and water. My first proposal to Disney was, “What if fire fell in love with water?” From the start, there was this romantic dimension. It was just about finding a balance. The main challenge of this film was not only to succeed in telling a love story in a romantic genre, which is very difficult to do since the audience has to become attached to the characters and feel their love, but also to make this story a family drama. And with the addition of the great city of elements, the challenge became more and more complex… This was probably the biggest challenge.
You mentioned the challenges of the screenplay and the genre, the animation ofElementary also represented a particular challenge?
I think the biggest physical and practical challenge was the technical side of creating these characters. Pixar had never had characters made up of so many digital effects before. They were used to creating toys, cars, humans, but they had never had characters that moved so much (even when they were static). Every shot in this film is a digital effect, and that was the biggest challenge.
So I had to pave the way and find a way to incorporate fire into every shot of the film. Water was the biggest monster. Once we were successful with the fire, water was a problem in every shot: when changing the speed of the bubbles, Flack looked like jelly; when you removed the reflections, he looked like a ghost; when he was in the cellar, he disappeared; when it was on a roof, it became so bright that you could no longer see it. Every shot was a real challenge.