The need for Speed
Ben Walters marvels at the visual magic of Speed Racer, the kinetic new film from The Matrix directors
The Wachowski's bring back some much needed awe into the cinematic spectacle
Nestled among the bright colours and fast manoeuvres of Speed Racer are photos of a zebra, glimpsed in the background of a virtual racetrack at which souped-up cars do eye-popping battle. Easily missed, these images of the black-and-whitest of animals are described by directors Andy and Larry (now Lana) Wachowski as a tribute to Eadweard Muybridge, the 19th century photographer known for his split-second sequences showing how animals' bodies move. What would the makers of this supercharged anime adaptation have to thank Muybridge for? The answer goes back to the birth of cinema: simple fascination with objects in motion.
Speed Racer is a big-screen version of a 1960s Japanese animated series. There is a plot, but if the filmmakers expect us to keep up with the minutiae of its corporate skullduggery, or to put much emotional stock in the characters, they're kidding themselves. They probably don't.
Speed Racer is less about thinking than feeling. The Wachowkis' first film since the Matrix trilogy is less interested in narrative or psychological engagement than the thrill of colour and movement - cars which meet in 400mph mid-air clashes as intricate and impossible as anything in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. (The Wachowskis call it ‘car fu'.)
Racing has never been filmed like this - and, of course, it hasn't been filmed like this for Speed Racer. The film inhabits a virtual world, a computer-generated environment in which the image roams from the rules of conventional photography. Multiple planes of vision remain in crisp focus. Long, single shots swoop from stadium overviews into the cockpits of one car after another. Such control over three-dimensional space is an extrapolation of the ‘bullet time' effect developed for The Matrix, an effect expanded for the Matrix sequel's car chases and echoed in The Fast and the Furious.
In the first wave of CGI - from Terminator 2 to The Lord of the Rings cycle - filmmakers created virtual objects with real-world credibility. It seemed if you were standing on the set of Jurassic Park, you'd see those raptors. They were pseudo-photographic. Movies present fantasy worlds where light and physicality work on terms different to our own. These films are post-photographic - a comic-book look with a video-game feel, and little interest in attributes commonly associated with quality cinema: narrative, characters, sophisticated dialogue.
But there is an argument that visceral sensation and audio-visual immersion are more cinematic than character or plot; those ‘quality' attributes should be left to novels. The earliest motion pictures inspired more awe than sympathy. We might find the medium's uniqueness where it overwhelms us.
At a time when film's commercial fortunes are uncertain, these movies offer cinema that robustly answers the challenge of home entertainment. It's no coincidence such pictures do well when screened in Imax or that a renaissance in 3D filmmaking is underway. They play by different rules. Their pleasures might be superficial but that is not the same as trivial. There's no telling what more provocative minds might do with such an approach.
Read Time Out's review of Speed Racer including the trailer
Watch a featurette on Speed Racer