Angel Falls

Destination: South America

Movie: UP by Pixar

When the movie UP first came to Tucson I went, hoping it would inspire travel. I took my grand daughter and shelled out the extra bucks for the 3-D edition of the movie. We dutifully donned our plastic glasses and watched a preview of a new movie coming out with monsters flying straight at us.

I thought the movie was beautifully done and had marvelous voices enacting the cartoon characters. I did not get all choked up by the sad parts like my son said I would. Actually he said that “Anybody who does not shed a tear in this movie has no heart.” So I guess I’d better hurry over to the cardiologist.

I did not talk about UP when I first saw it because, although the characters are traveling for 2/3 of the movie, and the opening seems to tout the adventure of travel, the moral of the story in the end is actually anti-travel.

Spoiler Alert: A small girl with a yen for adventure meets a small boy and infects him with the same yearning. They marry, have an ordinary life, except that they lose several children at birth, and she dies before him. All this makes a gloomy start, but I noticed that it pretty much went over the head of my grand daughter. When he needs to escape the retirement home, he takes off to find the land she never got to see, accompanied by an 8 year old boy scout. After they makes the trip, the old man learns that his wife was content with the adventures of living their ordinary life.

But then I saw a tweet about the London Telegraph‘s album of pictures of the real locations of UP and I thought again. Yes, the creators of the film had done extensive research in South America, and yes, they had created an other-worldly set actually modeled on parts of the world we live in.

So, take a look at the two Telegraph articles and see if you don’t want to travel to South America.When UP became the first movie to lead off the Cannes film festival, the paper ran this review. And in their picture album section, they include pictures of locations for UP .

The Real Locations behind the Pixar Movie, proclaims their headline. But the photos they show are limited. The two real stunners are Angel Falls in Venezuela–recognizably the place that Mr. Frederickson is headed, and the Plateau of Mount Roraima, between Guyana and Brazil. According to the Telegraph, Conan Doyle also used this locale, for The Lost World.

In the end, I wondered whether my grand daughter would be caught up  in the sense of adventure and  the possible beauty of unknown lands, or whether she would figure this was just another cartoon–not at all real.

Photo attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidkjelkerud/ / CC BY 2.0

By the way, do you know any movies with shorter titles than UP??

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.