I never
got to experience this movie back in 2008. I don't quite remember when I first
watched it, but I remember the DVD being in regular rotation in my tiny tube TV
DVD player combo back in my middle school days. This was the same TV that I
would sneak into my room at night to watch all manner of movies I had rented
from the library or snuck up from our basement. Some I should've been allowed
to watch. Some I shouldn't have. I would keep a packet of sticky notes by my
bed so that, when I felt myself nodding off, I would mark the title and
timestamp that I stopped the film to go to bed. “Speed Racer” was a film that I
stopped watch on that little TV after five minutes, because I wanted to watch
it on our big 40-inch basement TV instead.
Okay,
Mr. Two-time-Grand-Prix-five-time-WRL-future-Hall-of-Fame, teach me something.
I love “The
Matrix,” another film I watched endlessly as a child, and one of those movies
that I point to and say, "That one made me want to make movies." Now
that I've grown older and my knowledge of the Wachowskis and their influences
and work has grown, I appreciate it even more. But there's something that hits
me differently about Speed Racer. The more I grow and become a hardened fan of
maximalist cinema, the more this is held as the crown jewel of that
micro-genre. So many films take the approach of using just insane amounts of
resources and budget to tell small human stories. “Brazil,” the “Spider-Verse”
franchise, Greta Gerwig's “Barbie,” “The Blues Brothers,” “Batman (1989),” “Transformers,”
“Everything Everywhere All At Once,” “The Abyss,” “Terminator 2,” “Avatar,” “Titanic”
(Yes I also see a pattern here), all the way back to Fritz Lang's “Metropolis.”
All films that are using massive resources and effects to tell human stories.
But “Speed Racer” is the only film among them that I feel is transformed
through those effects. While the story of “The Abyss” or “EEAAO” or “Barbie” or
“Brazil” could work with lessened effects and smaller scale, the foundation of
Speed Racer is built with digitized and hyper colorful concrete. It's quite
literally in its bones.
Transponder-schmonder.
You want a real kick? You go Bernoulli.
Those
bones build out the thrilling racing stylings that bleed, literally and
figuratively, into the rest of the film's visual language. As if needing to
reinforce their techniques even more, the Wachowskis make sure that every scene
is shot the same way. It isn't a matter of the racing scenes getting all the
attention while switching back to a "normal" approach for the rest of
the film. Each moment is treated with the same visual identity. Which isn't to
say it's treated with the same intensity. The sisters smartly wind up to
things. The opening in Speed's classroom is teaching us how to watch the film.
Racing lingo bleeds into his test questions and the world around him melts
away, resembling how following scenes will look. But its gradual, slow, and purposeful.
They don't throw us headfirst into this material. Michael Giacchino's score
echoes this, as it builds slowly throughout the opening until it and the
visuals crescendo with the first race. There are scenes that telescope into
themselves, seeming as though they’re taking place in an announcer’s booth, for
example, before the camera pulls back to reveal that the announcer’s footage
was on a blimp above a massive race track that is behind a mountain as the
camera zooms out past the mountain to reveal the desert track the scene will
actually take place in. It feels as though the Wachowskis are truly trying to
break and relearn the visual language of modern filmmaking, even paying tribute
to the most basic techniques of that medium. It’s certainly no accident that
one of the first things Speed races past in the film’s finale is a wall covered
in images of a zebra that appears to be running as he zooms past, replicating
the effect of an old school zoetrope. Blistering, colorful, electric, and mind
melting. It might be one of the few films you can confidently say looks like
nothing else out there, when it released or since.
More
like, a non-ja. Terrible, what passes for a ninja these days.
But they
never let the infectious childlike spirit be taken from them either. This is a
family film, through and through. Characters are easy to like, but not without
depth. The humor is silly in a childish way, but it still lands because of who
it's coming from. When Spritle and his best friend/monkey Chim Chim
successfully distract a bad guy by throwing poop at him, it's certainly a
childish gag. But it works because you're cheering at the little brother and
his friend managing to help save the day, albeit in a rather crude manner. The
family aspect at the center of the film's emotional core also works better
because of this. Making it a family film means that you're more likely to watch
it with your siblings, parents, and loved ones. Which therefore makes the
central parental and sibling conflicts work better. The environment you're in
while watching a film can change how you view that film and watching a film
that is both for and about families with yours makes it a bit sweeter.
It
doesn't matter if racing never changes. What matters is if we let racing change
us. Every one of us has to find a reason to do this. You don't climb into a
T-180 to be a driver; you do it because you're driven.
What has aged the best about the film is its stark anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist messaging. The central conflict is based around the Racer family's business being potentially bought out by a massive corporation, and the ensuing corruption discovered within the racing world. It is, quite simply, Speed discovering that everything he's ever loved about the thing he's best at is a lie, perpetrated by money. The film’s antagonist, Arnold Royalton tells Speed in this scene, in no uncertain terms, that the artists or drivers don’t matter and have nothing to do with the artform he loves. In the modern age of studio buyouts and monopolies, it hits harder. It hits especially hard for any audience member watching who also wants to make some kind of art. The film doesn't shy away from the fact that Speed and his family need to keep making money to keep racing. Speed blunty says so, “You gotta win if you want to keep driving, and that's what I want to do. It's the only thing I really know how to do.” The Wachowskis know that all art made in this age still has to have some kind of commercial prospect, so they blend that into the film by not only mentioning it, but making sure to emphasize how that need never diminishes the Racer family's talent and passion for their art.
You
think you can drive a car and change the world? It doesn't work like that!
Maybe not, but it's the only thing I know how to do and I gotta do something.
Describing
a film like “Speed Racer” as impassioned and honest might seem futile or even
just silly. This is a $120 million movie that's a live action American
adaptation of a Japanese anime that lost its studio over $100 million when it
was originally released. So why does it matter? It matters because the people
have said so. Much like the underdog story at the center of the film, “Speed
Racer” as a film itself has also been undervalued and underappreciated. And
now, with this IMAX re-release and 4K blu-ray remaster, it shows that Warner
Brothers is starting to realize what they have. I've watched “Speed Racer”
numerous times in my life. And I, like Speed, want to make art. I drove almost
three hours to an IMAX in a different state to watch this film, because it
matters to me. And just like I have many times before, the moment Speed
reignites the Mach 6's engine in the final race, I began to silently cry. Here
I was in a room full of people who all loved this odd, childish, colorful,
family film as much as I did. Who respected what it had to say. Who respected
the work that went into it. Who loved it. The last ten minutes of the film have
always made me cry, as we watch Speed race along to the finish line, nothing
stopping him anymore. The training wheels are off and therefore all we see is
an artist with full control of his craft. The environment you're in while
watching a film can change how you view that film. At home I watched that
ending and cried. In a theatre packed with so many others, cheering for Speed
just like the characters in the film, it felt like magic.
Go Speed, Go!
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