‘The Iron Giant’, the 1999 animated film directed by Brad Bird (‘The Incredibles’), is set in the year 1958 at the height of the Eisenhower administration with its clean cut image, its all consuming preoccupation with the Soviet Union, its ever expanding military-industrial complex and its belief that people could survive an atomic bomb by simply jumping underneath their desks or tables and holding their arms above their heads. In the midst of all this unfounded optimism, during a heavy rainstorm, a hole opens in the heavens and drops a giant robot into the sea. He is huge, about 100 feet tall, with big round glowing eyes and a fragile jaw which seems a loose screw away from becoming unhinged. (Think Hermann Munster, without the goofy smile)
The Robot (voiced with sensitivity by Vin Diesel) is later found by Hogarth Hughes (voiced effectively by Eli Marienthal) in the woods near the house Hogarth shares with his mother. Upon finding the Robot, Hogarth paces frantically as his face maniacally twists and contorts with the wonder of his find (“Wow, my own giant robot! I am now the luckiest kid in America! This must be the biggest discovery since, I don't know, television or something!”) and, like any boy his age, his imagination goes into overdrive playing out all the cool things he’ll be able to do with his newfound friend/toy. A wider image reveals the Robot, bored and about to fall asleep, waiting for the kid to finish his wonder and get on with the situation at hand. This lost Robot has work to do: He’s hungry and he needs to find some food. We later find out he also has a temper which is not always in his control.
I watched this film at 2:30 in the morning after an usually good date and when it dawned on me that the robot needed food, the boy was fatherless and that an arrogant National Security Agent was going after the Robot by any means necessary, I turned the film off and went to straight to bed to refill my emotional coffers. Call me a wuss but I think it was the best move I could have made: half an hour more would have left me an emotional mess.
Please understand that the movie is not at all depressing. The story is wonderful: Hogarth, an intelligent, troublesome and somewhat lonely kid, finds and befriends the giant Robot in the woods near his house. After finding him a home and a food-source in the local junkyard, run by a garbage collector/artist named Dean McCoppin (Harry Connick Jr.), Hogarth tutors the robot in subjects as varied as English, community, choice and in one particularly touching scene, death. He also spends a good deal of the film hiding him from Kent Mansley (voiced with smarmy menace by Christopher McDonald) the National Security Advisor, who pursues the Robot’s whereabouts with bumbling, ignorant and ruthless efficiency.
What drove me to my bed on this particular night was the fact that the characters in this film have actual needs and Bird, using quick, simple set-ups, does an amazing job of making those needs immediate and visceral. Nowhere in the film is this skill more apparent than in portrayal of the Robot: Juxtaposing panoramic shots of the Giant’s interactions with the planet earth with close ups of that unhinged jaw and those bright, round soulful eyes, we get a sense of his loneliness amidst his struggle to find his place on this new planet and discover the source of his violent tendencies. Unlike E.T. he does not want to go home. He seems more like Virginia Woolf in wanting to find a place of his own.
Most recent animated films focus on gags and hip references while completely ignoring the niceties of plot and nuance. In the first ‘Shrek’ film for example, Shrek rescues the princess so he can get his home back but there is never a sense of what that home truly means to him. I don’t mean this as a criticism: the anarchic havoc wreaking in that film are truly inspired and I laughed for about five minutes during and after Lord Farqaad’s interrogation of The Gingerbread Man (Lord Farquaad: Run, run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man. Gingerbread Man: You’re a Monster!)
‘The Iron Giant’ does this too but carries itself with a bit more sophistication. Bird and his cohorts put a lot of effort into fleshing out the characters and their relationships with incredible detail placed on their distinctive quirks. The result is an animated film where the characters’ actions and relationships carry consequence and meaning.
In one scene, the Robot takes Hogarth for a walk in the woods, carrying Hogarth in the palm of his hand. From high above the woods, the Robot spots the main town and in sheer excitement runs toward it. Hogarth stops the Robot in his tracks though by announcing that the town is not ready to accept him. The Robot slinks off and the slope of his spark plugs could not paint a sadder picture.
Since this is an animated film, he does find meaning and I feel duty-bound to reiterate that the film is a lot more fun than my serious, somewhat melancholic musings would lead you to believe. There is one scene in particular involving Hogarth trying to distract his mother (voiced wonderfully by Jennifer Anniston) from noticing the Robot’s disconnected hand wandering through their house (It watches TV, it unravels a roll of toilet paper) that left me satisfied and smiling.
In its quieter moments though, ‘The Iron Giant’ packs surprising, soulful emotional wallops. The film is about people who have something (or everything) to lose, be it their lives, their homes, their loved ones, their tractors, their electricity, their security or their sanity. It looks like what we have come to think of as a Disney film but imbues it with the tone and style of the Japanese anime director Hayao Miyazaki. On a broader level it places common fears into an everyday (suburban?) context and handles them in a thoughtful, mature and funny way.
Should you have the chance, Netflix or rent the thing.
