The next Disney movie, Moana: A Sea of Adventures premieres on the Brazilian screens in January 2017. Those who go to the movies will also be able to meet the animation short directed by the Paulistano Léo Matsuda, called Inner Workings. This is a rather personal project of Matsuda, who had previously worked on Detona Ralph and Operation Big Hero and is now the first Brazilian to produce a short film in one of the most important studios on the planet. The production has a clever plot and an interesting visual design.
Inner Workings tells the story of Paul, a man who lives in a city much like California in the 1980s. He is literally a square person and does nothing out of the everyday schedule. The most fun in the story is that Paul is not really the main character, but rather his internal organs, such as the brain, heart, lung, and intestine. Using a mixture of digital and traditional animation, Matsuda shows with much humor the conflict between the heart of the protagonist, who wants to venture and take risks, and the brain, which discourages such kind of thing.
The internal organs look like what is often in children’s biology books, helping to identify with these unusual characters. The forms of the organs also indicate their personality, making clear the conflict of the story and facilitating the entertainment for the spectator. So while Paul’s brain, like his head, is square, his heart is wavy. In the same way, while Paul’s everyday objects and places are square, the places he wants to go are wavy, cheerful and colorful. In this way, we want Paul to go to the gay places and risk to have his happiness.
Matsuda says that the contrast between what the heart desires and what the brain allows came because of its own experience as a nissei – being that the Brazilian side likes parties while the Japanese side is more logical. Inner Work works well as a metaphor for fear when there is the will to do something unusual in everyday life. The result is a very effective and entertaining short, which stays in the audience’s memory even after the long that follows the short.
Inner Workings is already a favorite with the Oscars of 2017, with great chances of winning due to its effective entertainment and the support that Disney gave the project.