The Ten Reasons You Should See Pixar’s ‘Ratatouille’: #4 – The Food

#4 – The Food

In Entertainment Weekly’s review of Ratatouille (Which, outside of the discussed problem, is still positive and has some valid arguments), Owen Gleiberman makes the following statement:

…the surfaces of Gusteau’s kitchen have such a vibrant photorealist sheen that you want to reach out and touch them, especially if you’re a foodie (and, really, who isn’t these days?).

Well, I’m certainly not a foodie. My eating habits are perhaps about as limited and strange as you could imagine, so that part of Ratatouille shouldn’t have appealed to me.

But it did; there is something about the food in this film that is just intoxicating, filling the screen with something you really do want to reach out and touch. And it’s Reason #4 you should see ‘Ratatouille’.

We’ve come a long way since the colourless mush you’d see on the Simpsons’ plates when that show began almost two decades ago. Pixar is always great at details, but they have never gone to this length before. In creating the kitchen at Gusteau’s, they have unearthed the ‘foodie’ in all of us. When Remy first heads into the fully stocked pantry, it is a sight to behold for a rat, yes, but it’s also pretty darn impressive for the viewers. Every grape, every block of cheese, it all looks different.

I won’t claim to have known what each dish was, or what an ingredient was used for, but I just know it all looked real to me. And when it came time to serve the film’s titular dish, it looks more appetizing in computer form than it ever would in real life. And I wouldn’t go near it in real life, trust me. But, since this is the case, I shall defer your attention to this wonderful New York Times article on how famous chef Thomas Keller (I have no clue who this is, but check the Wikipedia link for more) helped the Pixar animators achieve these wonderful concoctions.

‘A Rat With a Whisk and a Dream’ – The New York Times

This article explains it better than I could: the amount of work and effort that has gone into creating the food in Ratatouille is yet another sign of the attention to detail that has made Pixar the best in the business. And, without a doubt, it is another reason you should see ‘Ratatouille’.